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Translated Texts for Historians

300-800 AD is the time of late antiquity and the early middle ages: the
transformation of the classical world, the beginnings of Europe and of Islam,
and the evolution of Byzantium. TTH makes available sources translated
from Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, Arabic, Georgian, Gothic and Armenian.
Each volume provides an expert scholarly translation, with an introduction
setting texts and authors in context, and with notes on content, interpretation
and debates.

Editorial Committee

Sebastian Brock, Oriental Institute, University of Oxford

Averil Cameron, Keble College, Oxford

Marios Costambeys, University of Liverpool

Mary Cunningham, University of Nottingham

Carlotta Dionisotti, King’s College, London

Peter Heather, King’s College, London

Robert Hoyland, University of St Andrews

William E. Klingshirn, The Catholic University of America

Michael Lapidge, Clare College, Cambridge

John Matthews, Yale University

Neil McLynn, Corpus Christ! College, Oxford

Richard Price, Heythrop College, University of London

Claudia Rapp, University of California, Los Angeles

Raymond Van Dam, University of Michigan

Michael Whitby, University of Warwick

Ian Wood, University of Leeds

General Editors

Gillian Clark, University of Bristol
Mark Humphries, Swansea University
Mary Whitby, University of Oxford

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A full list of published titles in the Translated Texts for Historians
series is available on request. The most reeently published are
shown below.

Ambrose of Milan: Political Letters and Speeches

Translated with an introduction and notes by J. H. W. G. LIEBESCHUETZ and CAROLE HILL
Volume 43: 432pp., 2005, ISBN 0-85323-829-4

The Chronicle of Ireland

Translated with an introduction and notes by T. M. CHARLES-EDWARDS
Volume 44: 2 vols., 349pp. + 186pp., 2006, ISBN 0-85323-959-2

The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon

Translated with an introduction and notes by RICHARD PRICE and MICHAEL GADDIS
Volume 45: 3 vols., 365pp. + 312pp. + 3l2pp., 2005, ISBN 0-85323-039-0

Bede: On Ezra and Nehemiah

Translated with an introduction and notes by SCOTT DEGREGORIO
Volume 47: 304pp, 2006, ISBN 978-1-84631-001-0

Bede: On Genesis

Translated with introduction and notes by CALVIN B. KENDALL
Volume 48: 371pp., 2008, ISBN 978-1-84631-088-1

Nemesius: On the Nature of Man

Translated with introduction and notes by R. W. SHARPLES and P. J. VAN DER EIJK
Volume 49: 283pp., 2008, ISBN 978-1-84631-132-1

Sources for the History of the School of Nisibis

Translated with introduction and notes by ADAM H. BECKER
Volume 50: 217pp., 2008, ISBN 978-1-84631-161-1

Acts of the Council of Constantinople of 553: with related texts on the Three Chapters
Controversy

Translated with an introduction and notes by RICHARD PRICE
Volume 51, 2 vols, 384pp + 360pp, 2009, ISBN 9781846311789

Three Political Voices from the Age of Justinian: Agapetus - Advice to the Emperor,
Dialogue on Political Science, Paul the Silentiary - Description of Hagia Sophia

Translated with notes and an introduction by PETER N. BELL
Volume 52: 249pp, ISBN 978-1-84631-209-0

History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai

DANIEL F. CANER, with contributions by SEBASTIAN BROCK, RICHARD M. PRICE
and KEVIN VAN BLADEL

Volume 53: 346pp, ISBN 978-1-84631-216-8

For full details of Translated Texts for Historians, including prices and
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Translated Texts for Historians
Volume 54

Orosius

Seven Books of History
against the Pagans

Translated with an introduction and notes by
A. T. Fear

Liverpool

University

Press

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First published 2010
Liverpool University Press
4 Cambridge Street
Liverpool, L69 7ZU

The right of A. T. Fear to be identihed as the author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A British Library CIP Record is available.

ISBN 978-1-84631-473-5 cased
ISBN 978-1-84631-239-7 limp

Set in Times by

Koinonia, Manchester

Printed in the United Kingdom by

Bell and Bain Ltd, Glasgow

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements vii

Abbreviations viii

INTRODUCTION

1. Life 1

2. The Histories 6

3. Intentions 7

4. Secular Religious History 13

5. Sources 15

6. Structure 16

7. Chronological Systems and the Ordering of Time 18

8. Notes of Caution 22

9. Orosius’s Clash with Augustine 23

10. Legacy 24

NOTE ON TRANSLATION 26

SYNOPSIS 27

SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Book One 31

Book Two 73

Book Three 109

Book Four 154

Book Five 206

Book Six 261

Book Seven 318

Bibliography 415

Index 432

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank all those who have made many improvements to this
work, in particular Gillian Clark, John Davies, Mark Humphries, and Mary
Whitby. The errors and infelicities that remain are entirely my own respon¬
sibility.

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ABBREVIATIONS

a. anno (in the year)

A Abr. a Abraham (from Abraham)

ANF Ante-Nicene Fathers: The Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D.

325 (ed. A. Roberts and J. Donaldson)

AUC Ab Urbe Condita (from the foundation of the City)

CCSL Corpus Christianorum: series Latinorum
CIL Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum
CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum
fr. fragment

MGFl Monumenta Germaniae Flistorica

NPNE A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Lathers of the
Christian Church (ed. P. Schaff)

Per. Periocha

PG Patrologia Graeca

PL Patrologia Latina

PLRE Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire (vol.l, ed. A. H. M.

Jones, J. R. Martindale and J. Morris; vol. 2, ed. J. R. Martindale)
s.a. sub anno (in the year)

SHA Scriptores Historiae Augustae
sup. supplement

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INTRODUCTION

1. LIFE

For an author who was to become so popular in the Middle Ages, there is
disappointingly little concrete information about the life of Orosius; even
his name is unclear.* Jordanes refers to Orosius Paulus,^ and the fragment
of the Histories in the Bibliotheca Laurentiana, which probably dates to the
sixth century, speaks of Paulus Orosius, but earlier sources, such as Augus¬
tine and Jerome, and later ones, such as the seventh-century Visigothic
bishop of Saragossa, Braulio, simply refer to our author as Orosius.

The date of Orosius’s birth is as opaque as his name, nor is anything
known of his childhood and upbringing, his own works being almost
entirely devoid of autobiographical details. Braulio believed that Orosius
had been a follower of the heretic Priscillian who was later brought back to
orthodoxy by Augustine.^ This seems most unlikely and is probably derived
from Braulio’s knowledge of Augustine’s Book against the supporters of
Priscillian and Origen dedicated to Orosius {Liber ad Orosium contra
Priscillianistas et Origenistas), but his ignorance of Orosius’s own attack
on the Priscillianists, the Commonitorium de errore Priscillianistarum
et Origenistarum which provoked Augustine’s reply. Orosius’s writings
contain quotations from, and, more importantly, adaptations of. Classical
authors, showing that he had had a good literary education. From this we
can infer that he may well have been a man of some pedigree and have
stemmed from a wealthy family. Probably, like his near contemporary,
Patrick, he was a member of the curial class, though the two were to have
very different lives.

Orosius’s entry into the historical record comes in a letter of commen¬
dation written by Augustine to Jerome written in AD 415. In it, Augustine

1 For an extended discussion of Orosius’s life see Vilella (2000).

2 Getica 9; the odd order of names here suggests that conceivably Jordanes mistakenly
expanded an abbreviation, Orosius P[resbyter], as Orosius Paulus.

3 Letter 44 = PL 80 693-94; Riesco Terrero (1975) 170-71.

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is at pains to mention Orosius’s youth, but gives us no other clues about
his background."* When Augustine wrote to Jerome, Orosius was already a
priest and so must have been towards if not, given Augustine’s persistent
harping on the theme (it is mentioned on three separate occasions), at the
very youngest age at which ordination was possible. According to the letter
of Pope Syriacus sent to Evemerius, the metropolitan of Tarragona, and that
sent by Innocent I to the bishops of Spain, this limit in the peninsula was
35. However, this age seems to have been the exception not the rule and
elsewhere 30 was accepted as the lowest age for entry to the priesthood.
Given that this is what would have been known to Augustine, maybe we
ought to assume that Orosius was around 30 at the time Augustine wrote to
Jerome, making the date of his birth around AD 385.^

Although questioned in recent years,® Spain remains the clear candidate
for Orosius’s birthplace. Gennadius refers to him as ‘the priest Orosius, of
Spanish origins’,^ while Braulio writing to Eructuosus of Braga lists him
among the ‘most eloquent and learned’ products of Galicia.® The implica¬
tions of our ancient sources are supported by Orosius’s own writing. He
takes evident pride in the resistance to Rome at Numantia, in the fact that
Spain has supplied Rome with ‘good emperors’ such as Trajan and Theodo¬
sius the Great,® and has eye for details in Spain, such as the lighthouse at
Corunna, which is not repeated elsewhere in the empire. To these details
can be added his description of the Spanish town of Tarragona as ‘our
Tarragona’.'® Therefore, short of an unequivocal statement of the fact, the
evidence for Orosius’s Spanish origins is as solid as it could possibly be.

Debate has also raged over from precisely what part of the peninsula
Orosius hailed. The reference to ‘our Tarragona’ mentioned above has led
some scholars to believe that this was Orosius’s hometown. This was certainly
the view among many older commentators, such as Baronius and Morner.
On the other hand, in the context where it is used, ‘our’ could simply mean
‘Spanish’, and there has also been a long tradition, now supported by the
majority of modern commentators, of following Braulio in seeing Orosius’s

4 Augustine, Letter 166 = PL 33 720-21; CSEL 44 547-48. Augustine was 60 at the time.

5 See Raymond (1936) 5, following Morner (1844) 19.

6 See Arnaud-Lindet (1990) xi-xii.

7 Ecclesiastical Writers {De Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis), 39 = PL 58 1080-81.

8 Letter 44 = PL 80 698-99; Riesco Terrero (1975) 180-83.

9 Numantia 5.5, see also Orosius’s description of the Cantabrian Wars 6.21; lighthouse,
1.2.71; good emperors 5.23.16, 7.34.1.

10 7.22.8.

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INTRODUCTION

patria chica in the north-west of the peninsula." Braga is often seen as the
most likely candidate for Orosius’s hometown, above all because he refers
to two colleagues named Avitus as cives mei, ‘my citizens’, and Avitus of
Braga, who is likely to be one of these two Aviti, later calls Orosius ‘my son
and fellow-priest’." But these references, while perhaps suggestive, are in
no way conclusive. If we are to reject noster, when referring to Tarragona, as
having a personal reference to Orosius, his use of meus here is no stronger,
while Avitus’s remarks need not imply anything other than affection from
one priest towards another. In many ways, Corunna seems a more appro¬
priate candidate for Orosius’s place of birth." While lying within Galicia,
and so not contradicting Braulio’s comments, this town seems to occupy a
special place in Orosius’s affections; the singling out of its lighthouse in
the Histories as ‘a work with which few can be compared’ is particularly
striking. Augustine may also give us a hint here when he writes that Orosius
has come to him ‘from the shores of the Ocean’ and ‘from the furthest
reaches of Spain - that is Ocean’s shore’. However, it is worth remembering
that Orosius, albeit to produce a forced contrast, is happy on one occasion to
refer to Tarragona, located on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, as ‘the utmost
West’." Any speculation on our author’s hometown therefore remains, in
the last analysis, mere speculation.

At some point in the early fifth century, Orosius was forced to flee from
Spain to North Africa. The account of his flight in the Histories implies
that this was done under duress and placed him in danger." The precise
date of his escape is disputed. Some, using Orosius’s comment that he fled
at the first sign of trouble, have suggested that he left for Africa in AD 409
when the first serious barbarian incursions into Spain began, but this seems
unduly pessimistic, and the most likely date for Orosius’s flight is AD 411.

11 e.g. Corsini (1968) 15. Ibanez Segovia defended this position in 1681 in his Diserta-
ciones eclesidsticas par el honor de los antiguos tutelares contra las ficciones modernas.

12 Commonitorium 3, Letter of Avitus to Palchonius {Epistula Aviti ad Palchonium) = PL
41 805.

13 See Javier (1982) 177-78; Torres Rodnguez (1985) 25-27.

14 Augustine, Letters 166 and 169 (= CSEL 44); 6.21.19-20.

15 3.20.6-7, 5.2.1. Later in the work. Histories 7.41.4—6 suggests that Orosius’s flight was
relatively easy and this is the view taken by Sanchez Salor (1982) 15. The problem we face here
is the degree of rhetoric to be found in the Histories. The context of the first two passages is one
where an emphasis on the difficulties of flight would be useful for Orosius’s alignment, while
in the final passage Orosius is at pains to emphasise the benefits of the Christian epoch and so
may well be downplaying the difficulties involved in flight. The first account appears the more
credible of the two, but with no corroborating evidence, it is important to keep an open mind.

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This is when the Sueves occupied Braga and, according to Hydatius, ‘those
parts of the west which lie on the edge of the Ocean’ which would include
Corunna.'®

On his arrival in North Africa, Orosius became acquainted with St
Augustine, presenting the bishop of Hippo with his Memoir on the Error
of the Supporters of Priscillian and Origen (Commonitorium de errore
Priscillianistarum et Origenistarum)}'' The work suggests involvement in
doctrinal disputes in Spain and is a good indication of Orosius’s combative
disposition. The account of his journey to Africa in the Memoir differs from
that presented in the Histories, and states that he had arrived to consult
Augustine on issues of doctrine, coming to Africa ‘neither through any wish
or my own, nor through compulsion, nor at the suggestion of another, but
after being moved by some unknown power’.'* Given that Augustine had
previously criticised priests who had abandoned their flocks in the face of
barbarian invasions, it is perhaps not surprising that Orosius chose to make
no mention of his flight when writing to him.'^

Augustine produced his Liber ad Orosium contra Priscillianistas et
Origenistas in reply to Orosius’s work,^“ but was unable to satisfy some of
his enquiries. He therefore sent him on to Jerome in Palestine, commending
him highly.^' Orosius may have travelled to Palestine via Egypt, where
he speaks of seeing various books at Alexandria, and the Red Sea, where
he may have seen what he believed were the wheel ruts from Pharaoh’s
army preserved under the water.While we have no evidence of how the
relationship between Jerome and Orosius worked in practice, the two men’s
similarity of character implies that they would have got on well together.^* It
is likely that during his stay, Orosius acquired a copy of Jerome’s Chronicle,
which was to be a major source for the Histories. In Palestine Orosius soon
became involved in the Pelagian controversy, representing the anti-Pelagian

16 Hydatius, Chronicle, 17.49.

17 PL 31 1211-16; CSEL 18; Torres Rodriguez (1985) 729^3.

18 Commonitorium, 1.

19 See Augustine, Letter 228 = CSEL 57 484.

20 PL 42 669-78.

21 Augustine, Letter 166 (= CSEL 44 547). Given the tension that at times flared up between
Jerome and Augustine, one cannot help wondering whether Augustine’s sending Orosius to
Jerome was an act entirely devoid of malice.

22 Alexandria, 6.15.32; wheel ruts, 2.10.17.

23 Jerome is certainly complimentary about Orosius in a letter to Augustine (Augustine,
Letter 122 = PL 33 752; CSEL 56 56-71).

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INTRODUCTION

cause at a synod in Jerusalem convened on 28 July 415 by Pelagius’s ally,
bishop John of Jerusalem. The synod went badly for Orosius and afterwards
he was accused by John of denying that man could be free of sin even
through the agency of divine grace. To defend himself he wrote his Defence
against Pelagias concerning the Doctrine of Freewill (Liber Apologeticus
contra Pelagium de Arbitrii Libertate)}"' Towards the end of 415 a further
Council at Diospolis (20-23 December), which Orosius did not attend, gave
Pelagius a clean bill of orthodox health.

In this respect Orosius’s stay in the Holy Land was not a happy one,^^
but it was perhaps leavened by the discovery on 3 December 415 of the
body of the protomartyr Stephen by Lucian of Kaphar Gamala. Avitus of
Braga, a fellow Spaniard staying with Jerome, managed to obtain some
of Stephen’s relics, including, as he proudly says, not just dust, but solid
bones,^® and he gave them to Orosius to take to Palchonius, the bishop of
Braga. Orosius had promised Augustine that he would return from the Holy
Land via North Africa and so put in on his way home with a letter from
Jerome to Augustine, a further letter and some works of Jerome for his pupil
Oceanus, the official minutes of the Council held at Diospolis, and a letter
from Heros and Lazarus for Aurelius, the bishop of Carthage.^’ He arrived
in the midsummer of 416.^*

While in Africa, Orosius attended the Council of Carthage in 416. He
then set out for Spain, but the chaos into which the peninsula had descended
prevented him from returning home. He left the relics of Stephen in
Magona^^ on Minorca and returned to Africa.^” This is our last notice of
Orosius, apart from the internal evidence of the Histories which show them
to have been written by AD 418. We have no knowledge of his later life
or death. Gennadius merely notes that Orosius won his reputation during
the final years of Honorius’s reign. We must presume that this reputation
was based on the publication of the Histories. It seems unlikely that such

24 PL 31 1173-1212; CSEL 5 603-64; Zangemeister (1967) 601-64; Torres Rodriguez
(1985)756-880.

25 Jerome, writing to Augustine, describes these as ‘most difficult times’, Letter 134 =
CSEL 56 261-63.

26 Letter of Avitus to Palchonius, 8 = PL 41 807, ‘ossa solida’.

27 Augustine, Letter 166 (Orosius’s promise); Letters 175 and 180 (Orosius’s baggage).

28 Augustine, Letter 175.

29 The modern Port Mahon.

30 Letter ofSeverus {Epistula Severi), 4 = PL 41 823. Eor a modem edition, see Bradbury
(1996). Eor a discussion of Orosius’s journeys and the use of these relics, see Gauge (1998).

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a pugnacious character would have rested on his laurels, and it is therefore
likely that Orosius met an early death at around the age of 40, probably in
North Africa.^'

2. THE HISTORIES

When then did Orosius write his Historiesl Again, there is no consensus.
According to Orosius, who is our only source of evidence, the Histories
were commissioned by Augustine after the completion of the first ten books
of the City of God, and while Augustine was working on the eleventh. The
work must therefore have been commissioned after Orosius’s arrival in
Africa prior to which Augustine had no knowledge of him, but when? A
terminus ante quern is provided by the death of the Gothic king Vallia in
AD 418, as he is the ruling king of the Visigoths at the end of the work.^^
One resolution to the problem is to see the work as being started soon
after Orosius’s arrival in Africa, broken off by his trip to the Middle East,
and completed on his return. This would have the advantage of giving
Orosius time for research, but there is no positive evidence to show that
this was the case;^^ Augustine, when commending Orosius to Jerome,
makes no reference to any historical work, either commissioned or begun.
Another approach would be to see the work completed during Orosius’s
stay in Africa after his return from the Holy Land, but before his attempted
return to Spain.A hnal solution would be to see the work as being written
by Orosius after he had been forced to return to Africa, having failed to
return to mainland Spain. Augustine, when speaking of the promise Orosius
made to revisit Africa, refers to him returning to Spain, but gives no hint
of anything other than a brief stop-over in Carthage. Severus of Minorca,
the unexpecting recipient of Stephen’s bones, refers to Orosius arriving in
Minorca when returning to Spain from Jerusalem. This also implies that
Orosius’s stay in Africa had been a short one. If this is the case, it is perhaps
most likely that the Histories are a product of Orosius’s exile, written in

31 In more apocalyptic fashion Amaud-Lindet (1990) xx suggests Orosius died in a
shipwreck when returning to Africa from Minorca.

32 7.43.10.

33 See Fink-En'era (1954), Lacroix (1965), and Arnaud-Lindet (1990) xxii-xxv.

34 See Sanchez Salor (1982) 15. Penelas (2001) 22 believes that this is when Orosius
finished the definitive version of his work, but suggests it may have been begun during Orosi¬
us’s first visit to Africa.

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INTRODUCTION

Africa after he had failed to return home, making them the product of under
a year’s work.^^

Either of the final two solutions makes more sense than the first. The
main objection to them - that such a lengthy work could not be researched
in such a short time - is weak. There is no need to believe that Orosius
consulted widely for his work. The bulk of his material is drawn from a
small number of standard historical works. Moreover, the Histories, though
well written, do show signs of misunderstanding of their source material,
and while, as will be seen, some of these ‘misunderstandings’ are deliberate,
others are not; and these, along with various lapses in editing, suggest that
the Histories were composed in haste.

3. INTENTIONS

We have only Orosius’s word that Augustine commissioned a work from
him, and only deductions based on this statement, and from the work itself,
that it was a history that was so commissioned. Specifically, we are told
that it was to be a book setting out ‘concisely and in order’ all the troubles
‘found in times gone by that I could discover in all the records of the histo¬
ries and annals which are to be had at the present time’.” Like Augus¬
tine, who worried about the danger of becoming a mere compiler of facts,
Orosius too wanted his work to have some purpose.” What we have there¬
fore is not a mere list of disasters, but a continuous narrative. The commis¬
sion certainly did not provide the ‘essential material’ of the City of God as
Trevor-Roper once asserted: book three of the City of God, which contains
similar material, had already been written when Orosius began his work.^®
Orosius’s end product, however, was unique for its times. While previous
Christian writers had composed histories of the Church, Orosius produced
a history of the secular world from a Christian perspective, and it was the
combination of this subject matter with its new ideological interpretation

35 See Bradbuiy (1996) 24-25.

36 See, inter alia, the conflicting time schemes of 1.1.5-6 and 1.21.20; the curious chapter
‘title’ at 1.2.91; the division of Valerius Antias into two historians at 5.3.3—4.

37 1 Preface 10.

38 Augustine, City of God 3.18; 3 Preface 3.

39 Trevor-Roper (1955); date of composition, 1 Preface 11. Perhaps Trevor-Roper was
drawing on Dante, Paradiso, canto 10, where the ‘defender of the Christian Age whose
writings Augustine used for his own betterment’, quello avvocato de’ tempi cristiani del cui
latino Augustin si provide, is normally seen as Orosius; see Toynbee (1902) 121-36.

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that was to lead to Orosius’s work becoming a great success in the Middle
Ages.

Orosius took the view that previous historians, because they were
pagans, had necessarily missed the underlying message to be found in
history: an error that he regarded as his duty to correct."'® This message was
that the unfolding of history shows the unfolding of God’s plan on earth, and
that the arrival of Christianity therefore necessarily marks an improvement
in man’s condition regardless of any first appearances to the contrary which,
as Orosius is happy to admit, may have seemed to contradict this message
unless one looked at the longue duree.'*^ It is a message that Orosius repeats
relentlessly, telling his reader in no uncertain terms that ‘you’ve never had
it so good’, continually challenging him to find a happier epoch than the
present in man’s history,"'^ and emphasising how trivial present troubles,
by the very nature of their being present, always appear much worse to the
thoughtless than the major disasters that have occurred in the past."*^

Moreover, for Orosius the march of history does not merely show God’s
plan at large; His direct intervention in particular events is also readily
discernible. These interventions began with divine punishment for original
sin in the Garden of Eden,"'"' but can also be seen throughout historical time.
Such interventions, which Orosius regards as uncontroversial and incontro¬
vertible, are normally made to punish sin."'® These sins are both secular and
religious. The destruction of a library in Rome by lightning, for example, is
seen as punishment for Commodus’s murder of part of the Senate."*® Rituals
at Rome that involve burial alive or murder bring outbursts of madness and
military defeats."'^ Naturally, Orosius sees the persecution of Christians as
immediately bringing down divine vengeance. Nero’s execution of Peter
and Paul brings a plague and Boadicea’s rebellion in Britain in its wake,"'®
plague immediately follows Marcus Aurelius’s persecution,"*® and rebellion

40 1.1.13.

41 1 Preface 13-14. One interesting argument Orosius uses is the success of Claudius’s
expedition to Britain undertaken after the birth of Christ and the airival of St Peter to preach in
Rome, compared to the previous failure of Caesar’s British expedition; see 7.6.11.

42 Above all 7.43.16, but see also 2.11.8, 2.19.4, 2.19.12, 5.18.29, 5.22.5-15, and 5.24.9.

43 See the extended argument/diatribe on this theme at 4 Preface.

44 1.1.4, 1.3.1, and 7.1.3.

45 See7.3.5-6.

46 7.16.3.

47 3.9.5-3.10 and 4.13.3-8.

48 7.7.11.

49 7.15.5.

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INTRODUCTION

in Gaul is Severus’s reward for his attacks on Christians.^® Trajan, an
emperor of whom Orosius generally approves, is punished by childlessness
for his attacks on the Church.®' Heresy too attracts divine retribution.
Constantius’s flirtation with Arianism produces a massive earthquake in the
eastern empire, as does the adoption of the Arian Valens as emperor. For
Orosius, this emperor’s heresy was also responsible for the military disaster
at Adrianople.®^

While punishing the wicked, God rewards the faithful. Constantine’s
adoption of Christianity is repaid with a major victory over his enemies,
and the rapid growth of his new foundation, Constantinople, is due to its
being a Christian city.®® The emperor Gratian defeats a large horde of barbar¬
ians at Argentaria by placing his faith in Christ.®'* But the best example of
divine favour is that of Orosius’s hero, Theodosius, to whom the Goths and
Persians surrender because of his almost Christ-like demonstration of faith
and whose piety brings the divine aid that assured victory at the river Frigi-
dus.®® Similarly, it is the piety of the current emperor, Honorius, that dooms
the usurpers who rise against him.®® Orosius is also quick to recruit changes
in fortune to his cause, making the point that defection from God’s party
brings a fall in its wake. Arbogastes enjoys success as Theodosius’s general,
but fails when he joins the pagan Eugenius, and Mascezil, after a triumphant
campaign against Gildo in Africa, also falls from grace when he begins to
persecute the Church.®® As well as specific members of the faithful, Orosius
also believes that the very presence of Christians in a community alleviates
suffering, as God is more inclined to be merciful when there at least some
men attempting to follow His will.®* This view necessarily means that more
suffering was to be found in the pre-Christian era than after the incarnation:
T found that the days gone by were as fraught as the present, and all the more
horribly wretched as they were further from the salvation of True Religion.’®®
Such an ideologically orientated interpretation of history carries its
own dangers. While it can be comforting and heartening to read that one is

50 7.17.5.

51 7.33.4 (see Orosius’s earlier special pleading for Trajan at 7.12.4).

52 7.29.5, 7.32.5, and 7.33.17.

53 7.28.27-30.

54 7.33.8.

55 7.34.7 and 7.35.15-22.

56 7.42.15.

57 7.35.12 and 7.36.13.

58 2.3.7.

59 1 Preface 14.

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part of an inevitably triumphant process, it can also be troubling when the
historical record fails to meet such expectations. One obvious strategy here
for an historian is to avoid any mention of such awkward data, but while
Orosius is guilty of this from time to time - the most striking example being
his silence over the massacre at Salonica ordered by his hero Theodosius in
390 - normally he is honest enough to record events in the Christian period
which do not seem to fit into his plan and express himself to be perplexed.
This is how he deals with Constantine’s execution of his sons.“ In the end,
Orosius accepts that God moves in mysterious ways and that sometimes His
decisions cannot be understood by mere men. Like Alexander Pope, he asks
us to accept this problem with faith and believe that ‘whatever is, is right’.®'
The overall structure of the Histories shows the influence of Christian
apocalyptic thought, though Orosius does not labour this overtly in the text.
The seven books of the Histories reflect the seven days of creation in Genesis.
They also have important implications for Orosius’s eschatological beliefs.
The final, seventh, millennium on various readings of the Bible is meant to
usher in Christ’s reign of one thousand years which would be followed by
the last battle with Satan, the Pinal Judgment, and the recreation of Heaven
and Earth.This was already a matter of some controversy within the Chris¬
tian church of Orosius’s day. Some Christians looked forward to the coming
of the seventh millennium as a cataclysmic event that would augur the end
of time, a view normally characterised now as premillennarian. Others, most
notably Augustine, were deeply worried by this literalist approach to the
Bible and regarded the birth of Christ as heralding the start of the seventh
millennium which would then continue with a mixture of good and evil until
the Second Coming and Pinal Judgment, a viewpoint now normally referred
to as amillennarian.®^ Orosius, however, seems closer to a third viewpoint,
the postmillennarian, where the seventh millennium is again initiated by the
birth of Christ, but what follows is a thousand-year reign of increasing peace
and plenty as Christianity spreads across the world. The fact that the seventh
book of the histories takes its starting point from the birth of Christ is highly
suggestive in this respect. Orosius tells us that God has ordained Babylon

60 7.28.26.

61 7.43.18; cf. 7.41.10.

62 The seven days of Genesis give a timescale for completeness. This is then combined
with Psalm 90.4 and 2 Peter 3.8 where we are assured that a thousand years is a day in the sight
of God. The world, therefore, will last for seven millennia. The details of the seventh millen¬
nium and the end of the world are described in Revelation 20-21.

63 See City of God, 20.7-9.

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INTRODUCTION

to rule at the beginning of this world and Rome at its end. His seventh book
therefore represents the seventh millennium that will last until the Second
Coming.'’"' Orosius certainly thought the number seven important; it is the
‘number by which all things are judged’ and had put an end to both the
kingdoms of Macedon and Carthage.“ Rome too was badly affected by
this number, though we are told it escaped harm.'’® Unfortunately, Orosius
assumes his readers know why seven is such a dangerous number and so
never gives an explicit statement about this matter, but the general sense is
that seven is the number of completeness and so marks the end of things.®’
If this were all that could be found in Orosius’s Histories, it could be
regarded as a worthy but somewhat ineffective work. The symbolism of
the seven books would carry no resonance with his non-Christian readers.
Perception of divine intervention in the world was by no means unique to
the Christian world, and while pagan critics would have had no quarrel
with Orosius’s methodology, they simply would have argued that it was
misplaced. Sadly, Orosius’s work has been all too often seen in this light,
and much scholarship has been expended quarrying Orosius’s sources out
of the Histories while paying little regard to the work itself.

This is a great pity. Orosius writes well and uses the full repertoire of the
rhetorical techniques available to late antique writers. Recusatio is deployed
on occasions,®* and Orosius has a particular love of contrast, chiasmus, and
verbal puns. He has had a good classical education and the deployment
of his learning shows that he is writing for those of a similar background.
To understand the Histories, it is important to bear in mind that Orosius’s
career had been that of an ecclesiastical polemicist. His work is not a mere
list or chronicle, but a work of polemical history with a specific target -
the pagan intellectuals of the day and their argument that Christianity had
ruined Rome®® - and it is designed to face down his opponents in the most
effective way possible.

64 2.3.5.

65 7.2.9; cf. 4.23.6.

66 7.2.10.

67 This sentiment lies at the back of the ‘seven ages of man’. This is found in the Hippocratic
work, ‘On the Number Seven’, for which see Roscher (1913). It is likely to be Orosius’s source,
as the work was known to the early Church Fathers, see Ambrose, Letters, 44. The notion is also
found in Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblios, 4.10, and in early Jewish thought, see Philo, On the Maker of
the World {De Mundi Opificio) 30.89^3.128. It is most famously found in Shakespeare’s As
You Like It, Act II scene vii. For numerology in antiquity in general, see Barry (1999).

68 1.12.3 and 5.1.9.

69 1 Preface 9.

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When writing to Jerome, Augustine describes Orosius as ‘keen-spirited,
swift to speak, and full of zeal’ and of his wish to become a ‘useful vessel...
for the refutation of heresies...’ The picture thus drawn is one of a highly
combative individual. This is born out by Orosius’s own self-characteri¬
sation as a ‘hound of the Lord’ found in the Preface to the Histories?^ In
general, Orosius’s instinct when confronted with pagan opposition to his
faith was not to conciliate, but to attack. Given his contemporary situation,
the most important issue facing him was the sack of Rome at the hands of the
Goths and the role that Christianity was perceived as having played in this
disaster. The sack certainly had been a shock for the Church and made the
early hfth century seem a much darker and more despondent place to most
Christians. Jerome was horrified; ‘what can be safe if Rome has fallen?’ he
asks, and elsewhere bewails that, ‘the whole world has perished with this
single city’.’' Augustine was to deal with the problem by insisting on the
distinction between the earthly and heavenly cities and placing priority on
the latter. Orosius, though, was to take a very different tack.

Ear from lamenting the sack of Rome, as did his contemporaries, Orosi¬
us’s solution was to confront the problem it posed for the Eaith head on, by
denying that there was a problem at all. He makes the bold claim that the
sack was of no significance, and goes on to stand on its head the standard
pagan view that it had come about because of Rome’s neglect of her tradi¬
tional gods by insisting that its occurrence was, in fact, due to the presence
of pagans, not Christians, in the city.” The centrepiece of his tactics was to
contrast the sack of Rome in AD 410 by the Goths with that of the Gauls in
390 BC. Orosius presents the latter as an unmitigated disaster, compared to
which the former is so trivial that it is hardly worth mentioning at all, and
in fact brought positive benefits by cleansing Rome of pagan iconography.’^
Eor Orosius the key difference between the two events is Christianity. The
sack of 390 BC was a sack of a pagan city carried out by pagans, but the
sack of AD 410 was God’s justified chastisement of a partially Christian
city performed by Christians (Orosius here carefully forgets that the Chris¬
tians concerned, Alaric’s Goths, were Arians - a heresy upon which earlier

70 Less charitably Kelly (1975) 317-18 describes Orosius as a ‘talented, opinionated,
narrowly-orthodox, impetuous young man’ and ‘aggressive and tactless’. This is hard, but
probably fair.

71 Jerome, Letter 123, see also Letter 127; Commentary on Ezekiel {Commentaria in
Ezekiel), prologue.

72 7.37.8 and 7.38.7.

73 2.19.13-15.

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INTRODUCTION

in his narrative he has heaped much abuse) and mitigated by the presence
of Christians in the cityJ"^ Other disasters, including natural disasters, are
given the same treatment, and again it is Christianity which is presented as
the key mitigating factor. An earthquake at Constantinople is avoided by the
prayers of the Christian emperor Arcadius, in contrast to the disasters that
happened in pagan times at Ebora and Helice,’^ and when Orosius records
that a disastrous plague of locusts struck Africa in 125 BC, and he goes on
to note that while such plagues still occur in his day, they are now bearable.’®

4. SECULAR RELIGIOUS HI S TORY

The use, or lack of use, of the Bible in the Histories also shows the care
taken to maximise the impact of the work. Given his career as a controver¬
sialist, Orosius had a good working knowledge of the Bible: the Commoni-
torium and Liber Apologeticus both contain extensive biblical quotations,
and Orosius’s stay with Augustine shows that he was intensely interested
in biblical exegesis. But Orosius also realised that pagans were unlikely to
be impressed by an extended use of Scripture and so knew that if he was
to defeat his opponents, he would have to fight on ground that they would
accept contained the truth. His technique therefore is to let secular history
justify the ways of God to men and show how this fits the Christian message
rather than vice versa.” An example of this approach is the ‘rain miracle’
that occurred during Marcus Aurelius’s German campaigns. Orosius here
uses an unimpeachably pagan source, the letters of the emperor himself,
to assert that it was the prayers of the Christians in his army that brought
this miracle about and then retrojects the notion of God’s protection of the
Romans back to the rainstorm that deterred Hannibal from marching on
Rome.’* Similarly, when Orosius synchronises the birth of Christ with the
accession of Augustus, it is the miracles attending the latter that he draws
on to make the point that this is more than coincidence.’® While, therefore,

74 2.3.7.

75 3.3.1-2.

76 5.11.

77 The work only contains one extended allegorical passage - the application of the ten
plagues of Egypt to Roman history, 7.27.

78 Marcus Aurelius, 7.15.11. For a detailed discussion of Marcus Aurelius’s letter, see
Kovacs (2009) 113-21; for Hannibal, see 4.17.8-9; cf. 5.15.15.

79 6.20; see also Augustus’s refusal to be called ‘master’ at 6.22.4-5.

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some biblical quotations are found in the Histories, they are far fewer than
may have been expected, and in the first book Orosius deliberately empha¬
sises that he will not rely on the authority of the Bible to make his points.*®
One exception to this is the account given of the Exodus from Egypt, but
this is done only after an attack on the accuracy of Tacitus and an asser¬
tion that pagan historians accept Moses as a good practitioner of their art,
which allows the Bible to be presented as a work of history rather than one
of religious dogma. This secular approach is also seen in Orosius’s use of
Jerome. Jerome’s Latin version of Eusebius’s Chronicle contains a large
number of notes concerning ecclesiastical history. Orosius, while drawing
on the secular notes heavily, scrupulously avoids ecclesiastical material, the
use of which would defeat his purpose.

While Jerome’s Christian Chronicle forms the spine of Orosius’s work,
the vast bulk of his sources are pagan. This poses a problem for Orosius,
but it is one that he turns to his advantage. This is done in two ways. As we
have seen, Orosius mines his sources for arguments that his opponents will
find hard to gainsay, precisely because they are drawn from pagan writers.
But Orosius is also happy to attack such authors. On several occasions, he
claims that his researches show his pagan predecessors to be unreliable.
The inaccuracy that he detects is normally a failure to agree on figures, and
he finds it particularly worrying when this happens for events that were
contemporary with the historians concerned.*' The most innocent reasons
he suggests for such errors relate to simple human failings such as a wish
to flatter patrons, leading to a tendency to exaggerate success and downplay
failure; but at times, particularly with Tacitus, more sinister accusations of
deliberately distorting the past are raised.*^ Given that Orosius himself is
none too careful with the finer details of his own work, this is hardly a justi¬
fied approach, but raising doubts about previous historical accounts lies at
the heart of all revisionist history. Orosius wishes to undermine the credi¬
bility of earlier works in his reader’s mind in order to create the impression
that there had been no reliable account of pagan history produced by pagans
themselves, so leaving his new Christianised account of the past as the most
authentic record available.

80 1.1.8.

81 See 4.5.10-11, 4.20.6-9, 5.3.3^ (where Orosius manages to turn one historian into
two), and 6.1.30.

82 1.10.5.

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INTRODUCTION

5. SOURCES

The sources Orosius used were probably not great in number, though a
specious lustre of wide reading comes from his secondary use of the
fragments of authors found in the notes of Jerome’s Chronicle. His main
source for Greek history is Justin’s epitome of Pompeius Trogus’s Philippic
History .Justin composed his epitome in the second or third century AD,
while Trogus’s original work dates from the end of the first century BC.
Livy, often at second hand via epitomes, the second-century historian
Floras, and late fourth-century writer Eutropius form the main base of
Orosius’s passages concerning the Roman Republic. In the Imperial period,
Eutropius’s work becomes more prominent along with the now lost fourth-
century ‘History of the Emperors’ or Kaisergeschichte.^ Orosius also shows
knowledge of Caesar, Sallust, Tacitus, and Suetonius. His approach to these
sources was by no means naive. While at times he takes material verbatim
or with very minor alterations, they are more often approached with a
careful eye for selectivity. Instances of failed prophecy are seized upon as
demonstrations of the folly of pagan religion,®^ while pagan prophecies that
seemingly come true are suppressed,®** as are accounts of successful pagan
divine intervention.®^ At times more open manipulation occurs. Leonidas’s
speech to the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae is carefully edited to give it a
sense quite different to the original found in Justin.®® Similarly, the sack of
the Phoceans’ temples is portrayed as evidence of the impotence of the pagan
gods, but Orosius’s source, Justin, presents it as divinely inspired punish¬
ment for the Phoceans’ earlier blasphemy.®® Later Orosius tells us that the
consul Gurges was defeated after the ‘snake of Aesculapius’ was brought
to Rome, leaving the reader to infer that there is a causal link between

83 For a discussion of this work see Yardley and Heckel (1997) and Yardley (2003).

84 The existence of the Kaisergeschicte was postulated by Enmann (1883). For modem
discussions, see Barnes (1970) and Burgess (1995).

85 e.g. 3.22.3 and 4.13.14.

86 e.g. 4.10.3, where the sacred chickens rightly predict the Roman defeat at the battle of
Drepanum.

87 For example, at 2.10, Orosius suppresses Justin’s comments that before Salamis Xerxes
had sacked Delphi and hence was waging war on the gods as well as the Greeks, as he has no
wish to imply that pagan gods could have been a factor in the Greeks’ victory at Salamis. He
also suppresses the Delphic oracle’s comments about the wooden walls of Athens being her
salvation.

88 2.9.6.

89 3.12.17; cf. the destruction of the Temple of Vesta at 4.11.9.

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the two events. In Livy, however, who is Orosius’s source, the two events
occur in the opposite order.®® Pagan sources are used to discredit the oracle
of Ammon, and Mithridates’ final speech is also recruited to the cause of
refuting paganism by a careful misinterpretation of its actual sense.®' This
studied editing of the pagan past is intended to leave the reader feeling that
Christianity’s critics are refuted by the very authors they would claim as
their own.

6. STRUCTURE

The shape of the Histories as a whole is also informed by a careful polemical
strategy. Orosius begins his work with a description of the world, probably
taken from a map.®^ This does describe the known world at the time and
its ostensible purpose is to give a geographical context for the rest of the
Histories^ However, no further use is made of it, nor does it describe all
the areas later found in the body of the work. It can be seen as establishing
Orosius’s universalist credentials but, beyond this, it is redundant.®"* It may
not even serve that purpose, but merely be a product of Orosius following
the historiographical conventions of his day:®® the full title of Trogus’s work
is The Philippic History and the origins of the world and description of the
eartW^ and it may be that this title provided a model for Orosius.

After the curious geography, the work continues with the history of
the Near East and moves onto the classical Greek period and the Helle¬
nistic kingdoms, but the predominant focus, and main subject, of the book
is the history of Rome, ‘the head of the world’, which Orosius regards as

90 3.22.5-6; Livy, Pe?: 11.

91 3.16.13 and 6.14.11-17.

92 See Miller (1896) 4-5.

93 The geography was to become a source for, inter alia, the early eleventh-century ‘Cotton
Map’ and the late thirteenth-century medieval mappa mundi of Hereford Cathedral which has
the inscription ‘Orosius’s description of the omesta of the world which is shown within’; see
Harvey (1996) app. 1. For its impact on medieval geography in general, see Paget (1902) and
Moore (1903).

94 For a contrary view, see Merrills (2005). Corsini (1968) 85 speaks of Orosius’s univer-
salism in time and space, but a reader will soon notice that this universalism is more apparent
than real in the Histories.

95 See Cicero, On the Orator {De Oratore), 2.62-64. The phenomenon of the redundant
geography is all too frequently found in modern works of history.

96 Historia Philippica et totius mundi origines et terrae situs.

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INTRODUCTION

particularly important.®^ While, at first sight, this seems to be a descent
into parochialism, albeit an understandable one, as Orosius’s readers were
subjects of the Roman Empire, Orosius’s interpretation of history is more
subtle than this. His strategy is to persuade his reader that Rome’s history
is from the beginning a Christian history and so it is paganism, not Christi¬
anity, that is alien and damaging to Rome. To begin this argument, Orosius
suggests that just as there is one God in heaven, so there should necessarily
be one dominant power on earth - conveniently this turns out to be Rome
- and men should have the humility to submit to this power as it is the only
way that peace will come about.®* It is therefore God’s design to unite all
peoples together under one empire to enable Christianity to spread more
rapidly, and his chosen instrument for doing so is the Roman Empire. The
history of Rome, then, precisely is universal history and Rome’s empire
is, unlike those that preceded it, one that has divine sanction.®® Orosius’s
Romanisation of the Christian faith is also a clever counter-attack against
his opponents who wished, particularly after the sack of Rome, to portray
Christianity as alien to Rome. Roman history for Orosius is both universal
history and Christian history; the three are inseparable from one another: as
he says at the beginning of Book 5, everywhere he goes, he will ‘encounter
my country, religion, and laws’.'®®

The centrality of Rome in salvation history is therefore a key theme
for Orosius and one that reflects his western origins and audience. While
intensely proud of his Spanish origins, his pride is in not just in Spain
herself, but also in her contribution to the empire at large.'®' He is happy
to style himself as a ‘Roman and Christian’'®^ and to refer to Rome as ‘our
country’.'®* In short, he agrees with his contemporary Rutilius Namatianus
that Rome had ‘made a single fatherland from far-flung nations’.'®* As
Christianity was historically a religion of the east, its focus on the east and

97 1.12.3 and 2.12.2. At 2.12.1, Orosius says he has no intention of just concentrating on
Rome, but this claim to universalism is belied by what follows and the following section shows
where his true priorities lie.

98 6.17.9; cf the hostility to the Gauls’ resistance to Rome at 6.22.2-7.

99 2.1.2-5 and 6.1.5-8.

100 5.2.1.

101 5.23.16.

102 5.2.6.

103 5.19.22. Orosius would have been quite shocked to read Menendez Pidal’s (1940)
xxxvi-xxxvii comments that ‘he was the first openly to question the foundations of the Roman
state and feel that his homeland was something opposed to it’.

104 About His Return {De Reditu Suo), 63.

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its claims made for people there may well have struck much of Orosius’s
target audience as at best tedious and at worst absurd. By making Rome
the clear focus of God’s plans for the world, we can see a conscious plan
on Orosius’s part to adapt traditional Christian apologetics to ht a broader
canvas, producing an account which would have seemed more credible and
compelling to his Western readers.

7. CHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS AND THE ORDERING OF TIME

Given his wish to show that secular events prove the truth of Christianity,
it is perhaps not surprising that Orosius uses the common chronological
systems of his day rather than one centred on the incarnation. Such a system
was not in fact available: the universal Christian chronology used today
was devised some 100 years after Orosius’s death by Dionysius Exiguus.'“
However, it is noticeable that Orosius chooses not to date events from the
birth of Abraham, as does Eusebius/Jerome’s Chronicle. Rather, prior to
the foundation of Rome, Orosius dates events by Olympiads. He then uses,
as was common in Roman historiography, the date of Rome’s foundation
as the starting point for his chronology.'®® Orosius dates the foundation of
Rome to 752 years before the birth of Christ, a year which fell in the sixth
Olympiad and 414 years after the fall of Troy.'®’ The date of the founda¬
tion of Rome was subject to some dispute in antiquity. The commonest
accepted date was that posited by the late republican scholar Varro - 754/3
BC. However, Orosius’s date has official sanction in that it is that which was
used by the Capitoline Fasti, the official list of Roman magistrates erected
in the forum at Rome, and it may be for this reason that he chose it, as it
would once again link his account of the Roman past with the ‘official’
version of the day.

The chronological structuring of the Histories, as well as the method of
enumerating years, also shows careful thought, but here Orosius is prepared,
indeed determined, to use Christian concepts. Nevertheless, in keeping with
his overall approach, the two schemes that he uses, while inspired by Chris¬
tianity, are not presented to the reader in explicitly Christian terms. The hrst

105 See Declercq (2002).

106 Normally such dates are styled At/C {Ab Urbe Condita), ‘from the foundation of the
City’.

107 2.4.1; 6.22. Eusebius places Rome’s foundation in the fourth year of the sixth Olympiad,
1264 years after the birth of Abraham.

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INTRODUCTION

is drawn from the Book of Daniel. Here, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a statue
composed of four different materials that are interpreted as four kingdoms
that are to dominate the world in succession.'”* This prophecy, which had
originally been a thinly veiled attack on the Hellenistic ruler Antiochus IV
Epiphanes, had already been developed to become a standard part of Chris¬
tian chronology and apologetics.'”” The four kingdoms represented by the
statue were normally interpreted by Christian writers as the Babylonian,
Medo-Persian, ‘Greek’, and Roman empires. Orosius accepted that the
vision outlined the evolution of historical time, but produced a new inter¬
pretation of it, which was much more firmly focused on history as it would
have been understood by inhabitants of the later Western Roman Empire.
The Persian Empire is collapsed into the Babylonian, leaving Macedon as
the second empire. The vacuum created in this way is filled by Rome’s
great rival, Carthage, as the third empire, leaving Rome as the fourth and
final empire."” The end result of this revised chronology is the same as the
original, but Orosius’s new explanation of the vision would have seemed a
far more credible version of historical development to his Roman readers
than those offered by previous Christian interpretations, mired as they were
in a narrow eastern perspective.'" Orosius’s approach to the vision in Daniel
is a striking innovation which shows him not as a thoughtless chronicler,
as he is too often caricatured, but as a man prepared to look at the basic
material of his faith and adopt new approaches to it. Nor should we see this
as a mere rhetorical strategy. Though it would have indubitably been useful
as a debating tool, it is difficult not to believe that Orosius was entirely
sincere in his interpretation. Sadly, this new framework for looking at the
world’s history is not then exploited to its full potential in the Histories, as
Orosius’s main concern in it simply lies in the way in which can be used to
demonstrate that the Roman Empire is the culmination of God’s plans on
earth. In particular, he presents Rome as the anti-type of the first empire,

108 Daniel 2.31-45. For the notion of a succession of kingdoms or translatio imperii, in
historical thought, see Trompf (1979) esp. 200-49.

109 Daniel’s dramatic date is the sixth century BC, but it was in fact written between 167
and 146 BC, as had already been deduced by Porphyry in the third centuiy AD - see Jerome,
Commentary on Daniel (Commentaria ad Daniel), prologue. = CCSL 75a 617-18.

110 2.1.4-5 and the recapitulation at 7.2.

111 The discussion of the prophecy in Daniel has been the object of much labour, most of
it futile, over the centuries. For an introduction to the main issues involved, see Rowley (1935).
Oddly, Orosius’s version was to fade from memory, leaving the Middle Eastern version as the
dominant one in Christian thought; see, for example, the somewhat bizan'e comments of the
NIV Study Bible (London, Sydney, Auckland, Toronto, 1985), 1277 and 1281.

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Babylon, which fell through its corruption and paganism, while in contrast
Rome has been preserved through her Christian faith.

Orosius’s other chronological scheme, of which he makes much more
use, is even more firmly centred on Roman history. This is another four¬
fold division of time:"^ the first division runs from the genesis of man to
the reign of Ninus of Babylon, the second begins from Ninus (the point
at which Jerome’s Chronicle and Justin’s Epitome of Trogus begin) and
continues to the foundation of Rome, the third continues from the founda¬
tion of Rome to the accession of Augustus, and the fourth takes history
down from Augustus’s reign to Orosius’s own day. These four divisions
are treated very unevenly: the first and second are dealt with in Book 1, the
third takes up Books 2 to 6, and the fourth is dealt with in the lengthy Book
7. These divisions in themselves show Orosius’s desire to place Rome at
the centre of history and also his wish to demonstrate the improvement that
Christianity has made to the world. This has its beginning with the birth
of Christ which is synchronised with the reign of Augustus, so it is natural
that the catalogue of disasters, which mankind suffered in the pre-Christian
period, the gravamen of Augustine’s commission, forms the lion’s share of
the work.

The synchronisation of Christ and Augustus is a vital feature of Orosi¬
us’s writing, as it serves to underline his message that Rome is the key
part of God’s plan for mankind. Christ, the ‘prince of peace’,is born at
the time when Augustus has established for the first time peace across the
earth, something that Orosius emphasises is not mere coincidence, but a
self-evident part of God’s plan."® The Pax Romana therefore, for those who
care to consider the facts fully, is a Pax Divina. The Romans in the Histories
have in many ways supplanted the Jews, who occupy a remarkably small
place in Orosius’s thinking, as God’s mechanism for bringing his plans
for mankind to fruition."® Like the Jews of the Old Testament, they often
lapse from their appointed task and are tried and found wanting, but they

112 2.3; 7.2.

113 This is initially a threefold scheme, see 1.1.5-6, but 1.21.20 implies the fourfold
scheme as outlined here.

114 Isaiah 9.6.

115 6.20.4-8 and 6.22.9; cf. 5.1.12.

116 Orosius sees the Jews as once being the people of God, but as having alienated their
status through rejecting the Christian message, 7.27.2, not to mention being responsible for
the Cmcihxion, 7.4.13. Rome, God’s new instrument, brings down divine vengeance on them
when Titus destroys their temple, 7.9.5-6. Strikingly, the Jews become one of the ten plagues
of the Roman Empire, in Orosius’s allegorical treatment of the ten plagues of Egypt, 7.27.

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INTRODUCTION

nevertheless remain God’s chosen instrument. The sack of Rome, or rather,
as Orosius would have it, Rome’s delivery from a sack, in Book 7 of the
Histories, takes on the colouring of the Jews’ exodus from Egypt in Book
1. The culmination of this process is that Christ chooses to become incar¬
nate as a Roman, thus giving divine sanction to, and Christianising, Rome
and, perhaps equally significantly, the Imperial Roman state. This unique
assertion that Christ was a Roman citizen is based on a false understanding
of the nature of Roman citizenship in the early empire prior to Caracal-
la’s grant of universal citizenship in AD 212. Nevertheless, it shows how
Orosius has developed not the pessimistic thinking of his contemporaries,
but rather the optimism of a previous generation of Christian writers, and
sees the empire as almost the instantiation of heaven upon earth. This can
be seen from Orosius’s presentation of Rome as the anti-type of Babylon,
the archetypal wicked empire of the Bible. The parallels between the two
are emphasised, but so is the crucial dissimilarity that while Babylon fell,
Rome still stands."’

Moreover, the message of the Histories is that Rome will continue to
stand. Orosius’s comments that King Athaulf initially wished to replace
‘Romania’ with ‘Gothia’, but then realised this would be impossible and
so lent his support to the empire, are important evidence for this belief."®
Orosius had a visceral dislike, probably based on personal experience, of
barbarians and this dislike is occasionally found in his work,"^ but in his
more reflective moments he sees the barbarians as Rome’s future. The
reason for this belief is that Christianity, whose purpose is to unite all
peoples, has tamed them. Orosius strikingly declares that the sack of Rome
was worthwhile because it led to the conversion of peoples who would
otherwise have remained pagan.'’® This is not an assertion that Rome has no
worth, but rather a demonstration of divine providence. Paradoxically, for
Orosius the sack of Rome did not weaken, but strengthen, the city, as it led
to the spread of Christianity and Christianity was to unite all peoples under
Rome. Orosius notes that the Burgundians have been tamed by Christi¬
anity, continuing, ‘they have recently all become Catholics, received priests

117 2.3.2-8.

118 7.43.5-7.

119 For a general dislike see 7.42.2. For specific instances, see the highly suggestive grand
guignol description of the Scordisci at 5.23.18; the comment that the loss of his hero, Theodo¬
sius’s, Gothic allies at the River Frigidus was a ‘gain’ for Rome, 7.35.19; and the description
of the Vandals as a ‘effete, greedy, treacherous, and son'ow-bringing race’, 7.38.1.

120 7.41.8.

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from us whom they obey, and live peacefully, calmly, and causing no harm,
looking on the Gauls not as their subjects, but as their Christian brothers’.'^'
The most important feature of this passage is that the Burgundians’ priests
have been sent to them from the Roman Empire. Orosius takes the view that
a people’s coming under the aegis of the Church will naturally entail falling
under the influence of Rome. Here we see Orosius’s postmillennarian hopes
come to the fore: the seventh millennium is already here and it will be one of
increasing peace as Christianity spreads across the world, civilising barbar¬
ians and bringing them into Rome’s orbit.

8. NOTES OF CAUTION

Despite this approving attitude towards Rome, Orosius, informed by his
opposition to Pelagianism, is nevertheless at pains to emphasise that the city
has achieved nothing worthwhile by herself and that none of her success or
destiny is a product of her own doing. Rather it is only Divine Grace that
has made the Roman Empire a success, and this has been done often in spite
of the Romans, not because of them.*^^ At times Orosius can be particularly
savage towards Roman failings. It is no coincidence that the sharpest of
these attacks comes when he compares the perfidious nature of Rome to the
pristine virtues of his provincial compatriots at Numantia.'^^ Eor Orosius
this dependence on Divine Grace is true even of the present where it is the
faith of Honorius, and indeed that of his enemies, the Goths, not Roman
arms that render the sack of Rome in AD 410 harmless.'^"*

Eamously Orosius combines this lesson with another Christian doctrine,
that of the horror of war. Military glory had traditionally been the centre of
Roman pride. Orosius disparages this in two ways: first, by emphasising
the number of defeats that Rome has suffered but, more notably, by also
underlining the tragedy of war.'“ In particular, his descriptions of battles
lay stress not on the fame won in them, but on the numbers who died. This
emphasis on the suffering of war is a striking contrast to the mainstream of
Roman historiography and Torres Rodriguez is right to characterise it as a

121

7.32.13.

122

1.16.

123

5.5.

124

2.3.7.

125

3 Preface 1

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INTRODUCTION

‘genuine revolution’ in the writing of history.*^*’ In the same vein, Orosius
also underscores that Rome’s glory is built on the sufferings of others and
that, if in the future Rome is defeated, those who defeat her will be seen
not as barbarians, but as great leaders in their turn.'^’ These sentiments
have led to him being seen as a kind of ‘left-wing heretic’.'^* But this is to
misunderstand Orosius, who is a highly conservative writer and who, while
emphasising the horrors of war, also worries about the enervating effects of
peace and comes close to enunciating the traditional conservative Roman
argument that war abroad produces moral rectitude and unity at home.'^®
His other opinions follow in the same mould; he is in no way disturbed by
slavery, and takes an orthodox aristocratic position on the major events of
Roman history, being, for example, violently opposed to the Gracchi.

9. OROSIUS’S CLASH WITH AUGUSTINE

Is Orosius therefore guilty of precisely what Augustine warned against -
believing it possible to create the City of God in this world and seeing Rome
as heaven on earth? This is not an entirely fair accusation. Parts of Orosius’s
vision of the future are by no means happy: he believes, for example, that
a final apocalyptic persecution that will usher in the end of the world lies
ahead'^“ and, as a good Christian, he does on occasions emphasise the trivi¬
ality of the earthly life compared to the life to come.'^' Nevertheless, the
general tone of Orosius’s work does come perilously close to the positions
that gave Augustine concern. If not heaven on earth, his postmillennarian
views mean that Christian Rome will certainly bring heaven closer to earth
as the last millennium progresses.For a moment in Book 2 it appears that
he may subscribe to the cyclical theory of history and that Rome will, in
her turn, succumb to the passing of time.*^^ But it is only a moment. We are

126 Torres Rodriguez (1985) 65, though he goes too far in seeing Orosius as presenting
history generally from the point of view of the ‘masses’. Orosius’s views on most issues, such
as slavery, are those of an aristocrat.

127 5.1.4 and 3.20.12.

128 Lacroix (1965).

129 1.16.8, 3.2.1, 3.6.1, 3.8.4, 4.16.21, and 5.8.2.

130 7.27.15.

131 5.2.6 and 7.41.9.

132 For a general discussion of this danger of ‘immanentising the eschaton’ of Christianity,
see E. Voeglin(1952; 1968).

133 2.6.13-14.

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also told that God has ordained the Roman Empire for the end of this epoch
and so it seems clear that for Orosius the empire will only end when time
itself comes to an end at the end of days.'^'* Orosius’s self-characterisation
as a ‘Christian and a Roman’ is correct; his work is not merely Christian
polemic, it is patriotic Christian polemic. This would have appealed to the
Roman gentlemen who were his intended audience, hut also reflects his own
views on the world. Such an outlook may well be the reason for Augus¬
tine’s later silence about Orosius’s work, apart from one oblique attack on
it.'^^ For Augustine, a millennarian turned amillennarian, the lesson of the
sack of Rome is that it has demonstrated the inherent fragility of all human
affairs and the folly of thinking that the City of God could be constructed on
earth.The relationship between the two men is opaque, but it seems unfair
to characterise Orosius as Augustine’s ‘henchman’ who ‘didn’t understand
a tithe of what he said to him’.'” While Orosius does at times defer to
Augustine in the Histories™ he is equally not afraid to disagree with him.'”
It seems more likely that the young Spaniard did understand the old man
he admired, but simply differed with him at a fundamental level about what
the future held.

10. LEGACY

Time is not kind to historians who indulge in predicting the future and
Orosius’s dream of a Christian empire rejuvenated with barbarian blood was
doomed to failure. Ironically, he is often now seen as of value for the history
of his own day and of nugatory importance for the bulk of his historical work.
But this is a modern view. Orosius’s Christian interpretation of the classical
past, often oddly entitled the ormesta or ormista™ became a standard refer¬
ence work on antiquity for the medieval world. Already by the end of the
fifth century, he had become a Christian classic and his reputation was to

134 2.3.5.

135 At City of God, 18.52, Augustine, though mentioning no one by name, attacks the idea
that the ten plagues of Egypt ai‘e an allegory for later history, an idea that is applied in extenso
by Orosius at 1.21.

136 See in particular City of God, 15-18.

137 O’Donnell (2004).

138 4.20.25.

139 6.20.4; see Mommsen (1959).

140 An enigmatic term. It is probably an abbreviation for Or(osii) m(undi) (h)ist(ori)a. See
Crone(1965) 448.

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INTRODUCTION

last into the early modern period.*"" More than two hundred manuscripts of
Orosius survive and the work was translated into many European vernac¬
ular languages including Old English'"*^ and into Arabic at the court of the
Caliphs of Cordoba by Haf^ al-QutT and Qasim ben A§bag, whence it passed
into later Arabic historical thinking, most notably being used as a source
by Ibn Khaldun.'"*^ Orosius was a source for many later historians such as
Jordanes (whose History of the Goths (Getica) begins with an explicit refer¬
ence to Orosius and a close paraphrase of 1.2.1), Gregory of Tours, Gildas,
Bede, and Alfonso X. The Histories also provided an important model for
how one should go about writing chronicles - Orosius’s influence in this
respect can be seen in Ranulf Higden’s Polychronicon and Otto of Freis¬
ing’s History of the Two Cities {Historia de Duabus Civitabus). He also
appears as the ‘pleader’ found in the 10'*' Canto of Dante’s Paradiso and as
a strong influence in a popular twelfth-century redaction of the Alexander
Romance.'"*"* His geographical excursus, which circulated independently of
the main work,'"*^ also had a powerful lasting effect, providing not simply
material for cartographers but also a model for later geographical writing
such as the enormously popular Image of the World {De Imagine Mundi) of
the early twelfth century.'"*®

The early modern period saw a strong decline in Orosius’s reputation
that has not been arrested, and he has now become relegated to the backwa¬
ters of history. Hobsbawn remarked of him ‘No historian today cares a rap
what [he] wrote, [or] thinks [his] views worth a minute’s consideration’.'"*’
Hobsbawn should have been more careful. As a Marxist he wrote with the
assumption that history necessarily followed a preordained course just as
much as Orosius did. Perhaps the spirit of the Spanish priest is not as dead
as many would like to believe.

141 Pope Gelasius in AD 494 speaks of Orosius’s Histories as an ‘indispensable work’,
Decree of Pope Gelasius and 70 Bishops on Apocryphal Scripture (Gelasii Papae decretum
cum septuaginta episcopis habitum de apocryphis scripturis) = PL 59 161. Nor were his
words unheeded: his near-contemporary, the grammarian and mythographer Fulgentius, draws
heavily on Orosius as a source for his The Ages of the World and of Man {De Aetatibus Mundi
et Hominis); see Whitbread (1971).

142 Often attributed, but falsely, to Alfred the Great; see Liggins (1970) and Bateley (1970).

143 For manuscripts in general, see Bately and Ross (1961). For Alfred, see Bately (1980);
for the Arabic edition of Orosius, the Kitab Hurusiyus, see Penelas (2001) and Christys (2002)
ch. 7.

144 The so-called J2 redaction of the translation of Leo of Naples.

145 See Riese (1878) 24-55.

146 See Doberentz (1880; 1881).

147 Hobsbawn (1955).

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NOTE ON TRANSLATION

I have normally followed the Bude text established by Arnaud-Lindet,
though I have occasionally rejected his readings in favour of those of the
Teubner text of Zangemeister. The points of departure are signalled in the
notes. Orosius has a great love of chiasmus, assonance, and alliteration that
I have endeavoured to preserve as far as possible. Direct and near direct
quotations in the text have been italicised, those from the Bible have been
given in the Authorised Version translation, those from Virgil, where the
sense allows, from Dryden’s translation. For ease of reading, other italici-
sation has been kept to a minimum. The titles of ancient works have been
spelled out in full; where a common English version of a title exists, it has
been used, for example, Augustine’s City of God, otherwise the Latin title
has been retained.

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SYNOPSIS

A brief synopsis of the Histories is given below.

Book One: History before Rome

Preface addressed to Augustine

1 Consensus of when history begins - King Ninus of Assyria

2 The geography of the world

3 The Flood

4 Ninus’s conquests and those of his wife, Semiramis

5- 6 Sodom; the fate of Sodom compared to that of Rome

7 The war of the Telchines against Argos; the flood in Achaea

8 Moses in Egypt

9 The flood in Greece: Deucalion

10 The 12 plagues of Egypt and the Exodus

11 The crimes of Danaus

12 Lament for the evils of these times

13 War between Athens and Crete; the Minotaur

14 Egypt’s war against the Scythians.

15-16 The Amazons

17-18 The Troj an War

19 The fall of Sardanapulus of Assyria; the rise of the Medes

20 The Bull of Phalaris; the crimes of Aremulus, king of the Latins

21 War between the Athenians and Sparta; Sparta’s war with the
Messinians; conflict between Sparta and Athens, the Athenian
Empire

Book Two: From the Foundation of Rome to the Gallic Sack

1-3 The theory of Four Kingdoms

4 The foundation of Rome

5 Brutus and the establishment of the Republic; Rome’s early wars

6- 7 Cyrus the Great’s capture of Babylon and his death

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SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

8-11 The Persian invasions of Greece

12 Rome’s wars with Italian tribes

13 The Decemviri

14 The troubles of Sicily; the Sicilian expedition of the Peloponnesian
War

15- 17 The closing stages of the Peloponnesian War; the Thirty Tyrants;

Liberty at Athens restored by Thrasybulus

18 Civil war in Persia

19 Rome’s siege of Veii; the death of the Eabii; the sack of Rome by
the Gauls

Book Three: From the Peloponnesian War to the Death of Alexander
the Great

1-2 The ‘King’s Peace’ imposed on Greece by Artaxerxes; wars caused
by Sparta

3 Earthquake in Achaea compared to contemporary earthquake in
Constantinople; Camillus’s victories in Italy
4—5 Plague at Rome

6 Gallic invasion of Italy

7 Treaty with Carthage; birth of Alexander the Great
8-11 Wars in Italy

12-14 The rule of Philip of Macedon

15 Rome’s war with the Samnites

16- 20 The rule of Alexander the Great
21-22 Rome’s wars in Italy

23 The wars of Alexander’s successors

Book Four: From the War against Pyrrhus to the Fall of Carthage

Second preface

1-3 Rome’s war against Pyrrhus and the Tarentines
4-5 Rome’s wars in Italy; plague at Rome
6 Early history of Carthage
7-11 The Eirst Punic War

12 Lament for the ills of this period

13 Rome’s wars against the Gauls
14-19 The Second Punic War

20-22 Rome’s wars in the East and Spain
23 The Third Punic War

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SYNOPSIS

Book Five - From the Fall of Carthage to Spartacus’s Rehellion

1- 2 Comparison of the past with the present

3-7 Rome’s wars in the East, Spain, and Gaul
8-9 Tiberius Gracchus

10 Rome’s war against Aristonicus in the East

11 The great plague of locusts in Africa

12 Gains Gracchus

13 Rome’s capture of the Balearic Islands and defeat of the
Allobroges; Mount Etna erupts

14 Rome’s war with the Gauls

15 The Jugurthine War in Africa; the rise of Marius

16-17 Marius’s early political career

18 The Social War

19 Rome’s war against Mithridates; the Marian reign of terror at
Rome

20-21 The rise of Sulla; Sulla’s reign of terror

22 Lament for the ills of this period

23 Rome’s wars across the world

24 Spartacus’s uprising; further lament for the ills of this period

Book Six: From Mithridates to Augustus

1 The nature of Divine providence

2- 5 Rome’s war with Mithridates

6 Catiline’s conspiracy

7-12 Caesar’s Gallic wars

13 Crassus’s defeat in Parthia

14 The varied fortune of Rome

15 Civil war between Caesar and Pompey
16-17 Caesar’s rule and death

18-19 Rise of Octavian

20 The beginning of Octavian’s rule and proofs that this was divinely
ordained

21 The Cantabrian Wars in Spain and Roman conquests across the
world

22 Augustus establishes universal peace; proofs that this was brought
about by Divine providence; Christ made incarnate as a Roman
citizen

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SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Book Seven: The Imperial Period

I- 3 The theology of history

4-7 The Julio-Claudian emperors
8 The year of the 4 emperors
9-10 The Elavian Dynasty

II- 16 The ‘adoptive’ emperors
17-18 The Severan Dynasty

19-25 The anarchy of the third century

25 Diocletian and the Tetrarchy

26 The rise of Constantine

27 Allegorical treatment of the 10 plagues of Egypt
28-30 The rule of Constantine and his sons.

31-33 The emperors lovian, Valentinian, and Valens

34-35 The rise, rule, and death of Theodosius the Great

36 The war in Africa

37-38 Wars and intrigues in Europe

39 Alaric’s sack of Rome

40-41 Barbarian incursions into the empire

42-43 Imperial recovery

43 The Goths as allies of Rome

43 Valedictory address to Augustine

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BOOK ONE

PREFACE

1. 1 have obeyed your instructions, most blessed father Augustine, and hope
that I have done so as competently as I did willingly. However, in either
event I hardly feel the urge to explain whether I have done well or badly, 2.
for you have already done the work of assessing whether I could do what
you wanted done, whereas I am satished with the evidence of obedience
alone, provided I have been able to adorn it with will and effort. 3. For
as in the great house of a great squire, although there are many different
kinds of animal that are useful to the household, the dogs’ task is not the
lowliest.' They alone have been given a nature which urges them on to
carry out willingly the tasks for which they have been trained, and, through
some innate disposition towards obedience, hold back, simply showing a
disciplined tremor of expectation, until they are sent off with permission
to act by a nod or a sign. 4. They, indeed, have their own special desires,
which excel those of the beasts as much as they approach those of rational
creatures: namely to perceive, to love, and to serve. 5. For perceiving the
difference between their masters and strangers, they do not hate those they
attack, but rather are full of zeal for those they love.^ And in their love for
their master and his house, they keep watch not because nature has endowed
their bodies with this ability, but keep their guard through the conscientious¬
ness of a love full of cares. 6. Whence, in the mystic allegory found in the
evangelists, the Canaanite woman did not blush to say that whelps eat the
crumbs from beneath their masters’ table and that the Lord did not disdain

1 This phrase echoes Virgil, Georgies, 3.404 ‘Nor is the care of the dogs your lowliest
task’. Virgil’s dogs guard the house and are used for hunting. Here Orosius sees the house as
the Church and the squire as God, while he is one of the dogs that guard the Church and hunt
down its pagan opponents.

2 Orosius sees the dogs as a metaphor for Christian apologists. His ability to live up to this
ideal in the Histories is mixed.

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SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

to hear her.^ 7. The blessed Tobit, too, though he had an archangel as his
guide, did not refuse a dog as a companion."^

8. Thus, bound by special love to that general love which you inspire,
I willingly obeyed your will; for since my lowliness owes this act to the
instruction that Your Paternity ordered and this work of mine, which returns
from you to you, is entirely yours, my only contribution to it is that I did
the work willingly.

9. You had instructed me to write against the arrogant wickedness of
those who are strangers from the city of God and are called pagans, taking
their name from crossroads and fields in the countryside, or otherwise
gentiles because they know of the things of this world.^ These men, as they
do not look to the future and have either forgotten or are ignorant of the
past, besmirch the present as a time particularly full of evils, far beyond
those which are always with us, and do so for this reason alone: because
Christ is believed in and God worshipped, while their idols are worshipped
the less. 10. You instructed me therefore to set out in a book, concisely
and in order, all the troubles caused by wars, the ravages of disease, the
sorrows caused by hunger, the terrible events brought about by earthquakes,
the unexpected disasters caused by floods, the terror caused by volcanic
eruptions, the savagery of lightning strikes and hailstorms, and the misery
caused by parricide® and other such crimes, found in times gone by that I
could discover in all the records of the histories and annals which are to be
had at the present time. 11.1 thought it right that Your Reverence should not
be bothered with this slight work while you were working hard to complete
your eleventh book against these same pagans, the soaring rays of ten others
of which having already swiftly shone across the whole world, as they

3 Matthew 15.27.

4 Tobit 5.16. The archangel is Raphael.

5 The use of pagan in this sense was a recent innovation in Christian rhetoric. Orosius
here is distinguishing between the pagans of town and country, but also skilfully uses the
classical preference for urban life here by contrasting the city of God with the countryside of
the pagans. To the ancient mind countrymen were notoriously stubborn and slow-witted and so
this contrast also fits with Orosius’s claims about pagan blindness in failing to see the obvious
truth of Christianity. For further discussion of ‘pagan’, see O’Donnell (1977).

6 Orosius draws a sharp difference between the killing of family members and of non-family
members, regarding the former as a much worse sin. His word for this form of killing is paiTi-
cide, which, despite its more narrow meaning in modern parlance, has been retained in the
translation in order to preserve this distinction.

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BOOK ONE

blazed forth from a watchtower of the church’s bright light.’ 12. Moreover,
your holy son, Julian of Carthage,® a servant of God, strongly urged me to
carry out his request concerning this matter in a way that would equal his
faith in asking me to do it. 13.1 gave myself over to the work and straight
away found myself in confusion, for I had often thought that the disasters
of our present times seemed to rage beyond what could have been expected.
14. However, I found that the days gone hy were as fraught as the present,
and all the more horribly wretched as they were further from the salvation
of True Religion. So through this scrutiny it became clear, and rightly so,
that Death, greedy for blood, had reigned when there was no knowledge of
Religion which keeps bloodshed at bay. For when Religion spreads forth its
light, death is confounded; death is imprisoned, when Religion is strong;
indeed, in the profoundest sense death will not exist when Religion alone
reigns. 15. An exception, of course, is in those final days at the end of the
world when the Anti-Christ will appear and the Final Judgement is held.
At that time, Christ the Ford has prophesied through His own words in the
Holy Scriptures that there will come troubles the likes of which have never
been seen before* 16. and then in the unbearable torments of that time, it
will be not in the way which happens now and has always occurred in the
past, but, through a much clearer and more serious judgment that the saints
will receive their approbation and the wicked their damnation.'®

1. Almost all scholarly writers, both Greek and Fatin-speaking, who have
recorded in their words the deeds of Kings and peoples for posterity, have
begun from the time of Minus, the son of Belus, the king of the Assyrians."

7 A reference to Augustine’s City of God. Given that Orosius was greatly impressed by the
lighthouse at Corunna, see 1.2.71 below, maybe this metaphor is of a lighthouse.

8 Nothing is known of Julian.

9 Matthew 24.21; Mark 13.19.

10 For the notion of retributive justice in Orosius, see Trompf (2000) 292-309.

11 This is of course untrue; however, it is true of one of Orosius’s major sources, Justin.
Augustine states that Belus was the first king of the Assyrians in his City of God, 12.11 and
18.2, though this had not been written at the time that the Histories were composed. Ninus
may be the Nimrod of Genesis, but neither Orosius nor Augustine makes this identification
explicitly. He probably should be identified with the historical King Tukultininurta I (1235-
1198 BC) whose name means T tnast in Ninurta'. Ninurta was the Assyrian god of war. ‘Belus’
is likely to be a euhemerisation or misunderstanding of ‘Ba’al’ or ‘Lord’, a common Semitic
religious title for deities

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2. Although through blind prejudice they want us to believe that there was
no beginning to the world or creation of mankind,'^ they have nevertheless
decreed that wars and reigns started at this point, 3. as if prior to this the
human race had lived like cattle and then at this time had woken up for the
first time like they had been shaken and roused to a new state of wisdom.
4. But I have decided to trace the beginning of men’s misery from man’s
original sin, merely gathering together a few short examples. 5. 3,184 years
passed from Adam, the first man, to Ninus, the so-called ‘Great’, when
Abraham was born.'^ These years are omitted by, or unknown to, all histo¬
rians. 6. There are then 2,015 years from Ninus, or from Abraham, to the
time of Caesar Augustus: that is to the birth of Christ which took place in
the 42““* year of Caesar’s reign, when peace was made with Parthia, the gates
of Janus were closed, and wars ceased all over the world.During this time,
every form of action and inaction was ground out either by men of affairs or
those who wrote of them. 7. This is why the matter in hand now demands
that a few things be taken, albeit as briefly as possible, from those books
which deal with the beginning of the world and which gained credibility in
the past by predicting future events which subsequently came to pass. 8.
This is not because I want to insist on their authority to anyone, but because
it would be worthwhile to draw attention to the common consensus which
I share with everyone else.'^ 9. First, we hold that if the world and man are
ruled by a Divine Providence which is good and hence just, man, who by his
fickle nature and through his freedom to choose is weak and insolent, must
be guided lovingly, when he needs help, and must also justly be punished
when he abuses his freedom to excess. 10. Anyone who looks at himself,
and through himself at mankind, will perceive that from mankind’s begin¬
nings this world rightly has been subjected to alternating good and bad
times. 11. Then, we are taught that sin and punishment for sin began in the

12 Orosius here is attacking the cyclical theory of history, albeit he appears to misunder¬
stand it. Augustine, City of God, 12.10-11, provides a better Christian critique, though this
would not have been available to Orosius when he wrote.

13 Orosius has taken this date from Jerome’s Chronicle. Jerome in turn took his date from
Eusebius. Jerome divides the total into 2,242 years from Adam to the flood and 942 years from
the flood to the birth of Abraham (2016 BC) which he then uses as the prime point of dating in
his Chronicle. In these notes Jerome’s dates are expressed as A Abr. ‘from Abraham’.

14 See 6.22.1, when Augustus closed the Gates of Janus for the third time. The birth of
Christ heralds an outbreak of peace in the world, a theme close to Orosius’s heart.

15 Orosius’s ‘books’ ai‘e those of Old Testament. His tactic by asserting that there is a
common consensus about the nature of the world is to demonstrate that the foundations of this
consensus can only be rationally held by accepting the truths of Christianity.

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time of the very first man.*'’ Moreover, we see that even those who begin
their accounts in the middle of history and make no mention of previous
ages, talk of nothing but wars and calamities - 12. for what else can wars be
called, except disasters that affect one side or the other?*’ Now evils of this
type, both those which happened then and those which still happen to some
degree today,** are without doubt sins made manifest or hidden punish¬
ments for sin - 13. so what should stop me from revealing the cause of the
symptoms that other historians have described, or from revealing in a short
account that previous ages, which, as we have shown, lasted far longer than
our present times, endured sufferings similar to those of today? 14.1 shall,
therefore, in as far as I am able to call events to mind, give an account of
the quarrels of mankind from the foundation of the world to the foundation
of the City, then move on down to the rule of Caesar and the birth of Christ
from which time all the globe has remained in the City’s power, and then
continue down to our own days,*® 15. and in doing so will reveal, as if from
a watchtower, the diverse parts of the world ablaze with evil after being
fired with the torch of lust.’** But before doing this, I think it is necessary 16.
to describe the globe where man dwells, first in the threefold scheme into
which it was divided by our ancestors, and then by regions and provinces,
17. so that those who are interested when they are told of disasters caused
by war or plague somewhere, might learn more easily not just of the event
and its date, but also its location.’*

16 The notion that man has always suffered for his sins is a central theme of Orosius’s
outlook.

17 The suffering caused by wai‘ is another persistent theme of the Histories.

18 The largest of these is the sack of Rome in AD 410. The triviality of present suffering
compared to that found in the past is a theme to which Orosius frequently returns.

19 Orosius’s tripartite scheme is not carried out evenly. Book 1 deals with events down to
the foundation of Rome; Books 2-6 deal with his second period; and Book 7, the third.

20 The image of the watchtower is perhaps a reference to Isaiah 21, but may equally be
drawn from Orosius’s own day.

21 cf. Cicero, On the Orator {De Oratore), 2.62-64. Orosius’s aim is a noble one, but he
never refers back to his geography in the rest of the work.

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222

1. Our ancestors divided the whole world, surrounded as it is hy the belt of
the Ocean, into three rectangular blocks,^^ and called these three parts Asia,
Europe, and Africa, although there are some who believe that there are two
parts: namely Asia and Europe, including Africa in the latter part.^'* 2. Asia
is surrounded on three sides by the Ocean and extends across the entire East.
3. To the West on her right she borders Europe, which begins at the North
Pole, and to her left Africa, but by Egypt and Syria she is bounded by Our
Sea, which is usually called the Great Sea.^^ 4. Europe begins, as I have
said, in the North from the river Tanais^'’ at the point where the Riphaean
mountains^^ facing the Sarmatian Ocean^* give rise to the Tanais. 5. The
Tanais flows by the altars set up as boundaries by Alexander the Great in the
lands of the Rhobascians^^ and feeds the Maeotid marshes^” whose immense

22 For a detailed discussion of Orosius’s geography, see Janvier (1982), Lozovsky (2000),
and MeiTills (2005). Orosius may have had access to the anonymous fourth-century The
Divisions of the World (Divisio Orbis Terrarum), but is unlikely to have drawn on Ptolemy;
see Merrills (2005) 90. Merrills argues that the geographical excursus is an important part
of Orosius’s overall project, but it is in fact not referred to in the rest of the work. Similarly
he suggests that it is an attempt to escape from a ‘Romanocentric’ view of the world, yet
again Orosius, unsurprisingly given that his target audience is educated Roman pagans, takes
precisely such a Romanocentric view; see in particulai* 6.1.6, 6.17.4, and especially 7.2.16.
Lozovsky more plausibly argues that the description serves the puipose of setting the scene for
the contemplation of the scale of human suffering and the frailty of temporal power. Orosius
carries over his principle of using secular evidence to prove his points into the geography by
making no reference to Jerusalem or any of the other holy places of Christianity.

23 This division is found in Pliny, Natural History, 3.1, and Pomponius Mela, 1.1.
According to Herodotus, 2.16, this tripartite scheme was devised by the early Ionian Greeks.

24 The opinion of Sallust, The War against Jugurtha, 17.3; Varro, On the Latin Language
(De Lingua Latina), 5.4; and Lucan, Pharsalia, 9.411-13. Augustine {City of God, 16.17,
which would not have been available to Orosius) inclined to the tripartite view.

25 i.e. the Mediterranean. Left and right are not useful geographical terms and we must
assume that Orosius is describing a map, perhaps derived from Agrippa’s map displayed in the
Porticus Vipsania in Rome; see Menills (2005) 70-73.

26 The Don.

27 The mythical mountains at the end of the world; beyond them were said to live the
Hyperboreans. Ptolemy {Geography, 3.5.15, 22) places this range in Russia and makes it the
watershed for rivers flowing to the Baltic and Black Sea.

28 The Arctic Ocean.

29 Orosius is simply wrong: these are the altars set up on the river Jaxartes (the Amu-Daiia)
by Alexander. The Rhobascians ai‘e the Borusci of Ptolemy, Geography, 3.5.

30 The Sea of Azov.

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mouth pours its waters into the Euxine Sea^' by the city of Theodosia.^^ 6.
Thence it flows as a long, narrow channel past the city of Constantinople
until the sea, which we call Our Sea, absorbs its waters. 7. The Ocean by
Spain is Europe’s Western boundary: more specifically where the Columns
of Hercules are to be seen by the islands of Cadiz^^ and where the Ocean
swell comes in through the straits of the Tyrrhenian Sea.^'* 8. Africa begins
at the borders of EgypE^ and those of the city of Alexandria where the
town of Parethonium^* lies above the Great Sea, which washes all lands
and shores in the middle of the world. 9. Erom there it extends through
the area, which the natives call Catabathmon,^’ not far from the camp of
Alexander the Great and above Lake Chalearzum.^* Thence it runs past the
upper borders of the Avasitae^’ through the Ethiopian Desert to the Southern
Ocean. 10. The Western bounds of Africa are the same as those of Europe:
namely the narrows of the Straits of Cadiz. 11. However, its uttermost end
is Mount Atlas and the so-called Blessed Isles."^°

12. Now, as I have briefly outlined in general terms the threefold division
of the globe, I shall take the trouble to list their regions too, as I promised
to do.

13. Asia has in the centre of its Eastern flank the mouth of the River
Ganges by the Eastern Ocean. To its left is the promontory of Caligda-
mana'*' to whose south-east lies the island of Taprobane"^^ from which
point the Ocean begins to be called the Indian Ocean. 14. To its right is the
promontory of Samara,"*^ which belongs to Mount Imavus at the end of the
Caucasus."*"* To the north-east of this promontory are the mouths of the river

31 Orosius appears to reserve the term ‘Euxine Sea’ for the western half of the Black Sea,
and to refer to the eastern half as the ‘Cimmerian Sea’.

32 Feodosia in the Crimea.

33 Now a peninsula, Cadiz formed two islands in antiquity.

34 The western basin of the Mediterranean Sea.

35 For Orosius, as for other ancient authors, Egypt is part of Asia.

36 Marsa-Eabeit.

37 Called Catabathmus by Sallust, The War against Jugurtha, 17.4, and Pliny, Natural
History, 5.5.32. Catabathmon merely means ‘canyon’; see 1.2.88 below.

38 The Kattai'a Depression.

39 Probably Abyssinia.

40 The Canary Islands.

41 Probably the Caticardamma of Ptolemy, Geography, 7.1.16, normally identified with
Cape Calimere on the Coromandel Coast of India.

42 Ceylon.

43 Perhaps Cape Negrais in Burma.

44 Here the Himalayas.

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Ottorogorra'*^ from which point the Ocean begins to be called the Chinese
Ocean.

15. India lies in this region. Its western boundary is the River Indus,
which runs into the Red Sea;"^® its northern boundary is the Caucasus,"^’ the
rest, as I have said, ends at the Eastern and Indian Oceans. 16. There are 44
peoples here, apart from those on the Island of Taprobane, which has ten
cities, and those on the remaining, and extremely numerous, inhabitable
islands.'**

17. From the river Indus in the east to the river Tigris in the west lie the
following regions: Arachosia, Parthia, Assyria, Persia, and Media which are
located in a rough, mountainous land. 18. They have the Caucasus to their
north; the Red Sea and Persian Gulf to their south; and through them flow
the notable rivers the Hydaspes'** and the Arbis.32 peoples live here. 19.
The area is commonly called Parthia, though the Holy Scriptures often call
all of it Media.

20. Between the river Tigris and the river Euphrates lies Mesopotamia.
It begins in the north between Mount Taurus and the Caucasus. 21. To its
south is Babylonia, then Chaldaea, and Anally Blessed Arabia,^* which
extends to the east along a narrow spit of land between the Persian and
Arabian Gulfs. 22. 28 peoples live here. 23. The land generally called Syria
extends from the river Euphrates in the east to Our Sea in the west; and in
the north from the city of Dacusa,®^ which lies on the boundaries of Cappa¬
docia and Armenia not far from the spot where the Euphrates rises, as far as
Egypt and the Arabian Gulf 24. which runs southwards in a narrow furrow
full of rocks and islands, and then from the Red Sea, i.e. the Ocean, it runs
towards the west. Syria comprises the important provinces of Commagene,
Phoenicia, and Palestine. Besides these, there are the twelve tribes of the
Saracens and Nabateans.

45 Perhaps the Tarim, see Janvier (1982) 109-12. The name Ottorogorra is a corruption of
the Hindu utopia, Uttarakuru.

46 The Indian Ocean.

47 Caucasus is the generic term used by Orosius for the mountain massif that marches
down through Asia from the Black Sea.

48 Perhaps a reference to the islands of Indo-China.

49 The Jhelum.

50 This river is in Gedrosia.

51 Arabia Eudaemon, modem Aden and Yemen. Arabia was ‘blessed’ because it was the
entrepot for the Indian spice trade; see Miller (1969) chs 1 and 9.

52 See Pliny, Natural History, 5.20.84, 6.10.27. Dacusa is possibly the modern village of
Pengau in Turkey.

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25. Cappadocia is at the head of Syria and has Armenia on its east;
Asia on its west; the plains of Themiscyria’^ and the Cimmerian Sea^'* on
its north-east; and Mount Taurus to its south, under which lie Cilicia and
Isauria, running as far down as the Cilician Gulf which looks over to the
island of Cyprus.

26. The region of Asia, or more correctly, Asia Minor,^^ is surrounded by
sea except on its eastern side which borders on Cappadocia and Syria. To its
north is the Euxine Sea; to its west the Propontis and Hellespont; and to its
south Our Sea. Here Mount Olympus is to be found.

27. Lower Egypt has Syria and Palestine to its east; Libya to its west;
Our Sea to its north; and to the south is the mountain called The Ladder,^^
Upper Egypt, and the river Nile 28. which seems to rise in a place on the
shore at the beginning of the Red Sea called the Trading Post of Mossylon.®*
Then it flows far to the west, creating an island called Meroe in the middle
of its stream, and hnally turns to the north. When it is swollen with the
seasonal rains, it irrigates the plains of Egypt.®^ 29. Some writers® say that
it has its source not far from Mount Atlas, is straightaway swallowed up by
the sands, 30. and then, after a small intervening space, bursts forth again in
a huge lake. Then, they say, that turning east, it flows through the Ethiopian
desert towards the Ocean and after turning once more to its left, descends
into Egypt. 31. Now it is true that there is a great river of this kind which has
such a birth and course, and which truly gives birth to all the wonders of the
Nile.®' The natives who live near its source call it the Dara, the remaining
inhabitants, the Nuchul.®^ 32. But this river flows into, and is absorbed by,

53 Terme on the Black Sea in Turkey. Themiscyra was traditionally founded by the
Amazons. Given his later interest in this group, it is odd that Orosius is either unaware of this
fact or suppresses it.

54 The eastern half of the Black Sea.

55 Orosius is the first attested author to use this term.

56 Not the famous mountain of Thessaly, but the Anadoli Dagh in Bithynia in Turkey.

57 The Greek Climax. No mountain of this name fits Orosius’s location. Orosius has either
misplaced the Climax of Ptolemy, Geography, 4.5.52, which lies in western Egypt, or perhaps
is making a reference to the escarpment by the First Cataract.

58 Ras Antarah.

59 For a detailed discussion of the Nile, see Merrills (2005) 79-87.

60 e.g. Pliny, Natural History, 5.10.51, who accepted this view which derives from Juba
II of Mauretania.

61 There is of course no such river. For a detailed discussion of the genesis of this theory,
see Janvier (1982) 206-12.

62 Both these names appear to be native names for the Nile. Pomponius Mela, 3.96,
comments that ‘NuchuT is a barbarian corruption of ‘Nile’.

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a huge lake in the land of the peoples called Libyo-Egyptians, not far from
that other river which, as we have said, has its source on the shore of the
Red Sea, 33. unless, of course, it bursts out in an underground channel into
the bed of the river which runs down from the east.

34. Upper Egypt extends far to the east. To its north is the Arabian Gulf
and to its south the Ocean. It begins at the border of Lower Egypt in the west
and ends at the Red Sea in the east. 24 peoples live there.

35. Now since we have described all the part of Asia, it remains to list
the remaining part starting from its eastern end and ending in the north.

36. The Caucasus range first rises among the Colchians who live above
the Cimmerian Sea, and among the Albanians who live by the Caspian Sea.
As far as its uttermost east, it appears to be one range of mountains, but it has
many names.37. Moreover, there are many who think that the Caucasus
is part of Mount Taurus because it is indeed held that Mount Parchoatras
of Armenia,'^ which lies between Mount Taurus and the Caucasus, joins
the two together. 38. But the river Euphrates shows that this is not the case.
It has its source at the foot of Mount Parchoatras and runs south, keeping
the Caucasus to its left and cutting off Mount Taurus on its right. 39. Now
among the Colchians and Albanians where it has its gates,**^ the Caucasus
is called Mount Caucasus. 40. Prom the Caspian Gates to the Portals of
Armenia, or as far as the source of the river Tigris between Armenia and
Iberia, it is called the Acroceraunian range.“ 41. Prom the source of the
Tigris as far as the city of Carrhae®’ among the Massagetae and Parthians,
it is called Mount Ariobarzanes.“ 42. Prom the city of Carrhae to the town

63 This is the range that Pliny, Natural History, 5.27.9, identifies with the Taurus mountains
and he uses the same names for its different sectors as Orosius does for the Caucasus. For a
detailed discussion of the Caucasus, see Merrills (2005) 87-92.

64 Orosius has either misplaced this range, which is the Parachoathras of Strabo, 11.8.1,
and the Choatras of Pliny, Natural History, 5.27.98, which lies far to the east and the Paracho¬
athras of Ptolemy, Geography, 6.4, which lies between Media and Persia, or he is referring to
a different location. Janvier (1982) 94 suggests Murat Nehri in Armenia.

65 Perhaps Pliny’s ‘Gates of the Caucasus’, Natural History, 6.12.30. Its most likely
location is the Dariel Pass in Georgia.

66 These are probably the hills running from the Koura valley in the Lebanon to that of
the Euphrates.

67 If the Carrhae where Crassus was defeated is intended, Orosius has become muddled
as this lies well to the west of the area he is describing here. Janvier (1982) 97-100 suggests
that Orosius’s CanLae is one of the many settlements called Charax (meaning fortified place
in Aramaic) and proposes Charax Cadusioium, i.e. Kesker.

68 The name probably derives from the mythical Haraberezaite of the Zend Avesta. It is
probably part of the Elburz range in Northern Iran.

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of Cathippus® among the Hyrcanians and Bactrians, it is called Mount
Memarmali.™ Here amomum'^ is to be found. The nearest part of the range
to this place is called Mount Parthau.^^ 43. From the town of Cathippus to
the village of Safris’^ among the Dahae,’'* Sacaraucae,’^ and Parthyenae, it
is called Mount Oscobares,’® which is where the river Ganges rises’’ and
laser^^ is found. 44. From the source of the River Ganges to those of the
river Ottorogorra which lie to the north and to where the mountain-dwelling
Paropanisades live, it is called Mount Taurus.’^ 45. From the sources of the
river Ottorogorra as far as the city of Ottorogorra*® among the Huns, Scyth¬
ians, and Gandaridae,*' it is called the Caucasus. 46. Finally, among the
Eoae and Passyadrae where the river Chrysorhoas and the promontory of
Samara reach the Eastern Ocean, it is called Mount Imavus.*’

47. Between Mount Imavus, i.e. from the depths of the Caucasus, and

69 The Peutinger Table, 13.3, has a Catippa in this area. Janvier (1982) 101 proposes that
Cathippus could be the capital of the Hycanians, the Zadracarta of Arrian, Anabasis, 3.23.6, in
the Gorgan basin to the south of the Caspian Sea.

70 This is probably another section of the Elburz range.

71 Probably Cai'damom. According to Pliny, Natural History, 37.78.204, Amomum was the
most expensive product to be derived from shrubs. See also Pliny, Natural History, 12.28.48,
and Virgil, Eclogues, 3.89, 4.25.

72 Probably to be identified with Isidore of Charax’s Parthaunisa {Parthian Stations, 12)
and hence the Djaghatai’/Kuhha-ye-Joghatay range in north-east Iran. See Janvier (1982) 104.

73 Possibly Isidore of Charax’s Saphi {Parthian Stations, 12) and the Sapham of the
Peutinger Table, 12.3, and hence, perhaps, Shoffri. See Janvier (1982) 101-02.

74 The Daae of Strabo, 11.8.2, a Turkic tribe centred in what is now southern Kazakhstan.

75 The Sagaraucae of Strabo, 11.8.1, a nomadic Turkic tribe whom Strabo says were one of
the tribes which conquered Greek Bactria and originated from the far side of the Jhelum river.
See also Ptolemy, Geography, 6.14.4.

76 Probably the Khorassan range in north-east Iran.

77 This is not the case. The Ganges rises some 1,250 miles further east. This error is
perhaps based on Orosius believing that the Sassanid Empire extended as far as the Ganges.
See Ammianus Marcellinus, 23.6.13, for this view.

78 Asafoetida.

79 The Paropanisus of Mela and Ptolemy, namely the mountains of western Afghanistan
from Herat to Koh-i-Baba.

80 Perhaps near Khotan.

81 The region of Gandara lies around Peshawar and Rawalpindi in north-west Pakistan.

82 None of these toponyms is easy to locate. The Eoae may be a tribe of Burma, though
they have also been placed in Tibet. The Passyadrae may have lived in the Ganges valley, but
Assam has been proposed as an alternative. There are several rivers called Chrysorhoas in our
ancient sources, but none in this area. We cannot rule out simple confusion on Orosius’s part,
but an alternative would be that he intends the Chrysoanas, see Ptolemy, Geography, 7.2.5,
which may be the Irrawaddy in Burma. For a detailed discussion, see Janvier (1982) 113-14.

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the right-hand part of the east, where the Chinese Ocean lies, as far as the
promontory of Boreum and the river Boreum,®^ and from there up to the
Scythian Sea in the north as far as the Caspian Sea in the west and the
extended Caucasus range in the south, live 42 Hyrcanian and Scythian
tribes. These peoples wander far and wide because of the infertility of the
soil.

48. The Caspian Sea rises on the north-eastern shore of the Ocean and
its shores on either side by the Ocean, and the places nearby are deserted
and uncultivated.®"^ Thence it extends south in a long, narrow channel
until, spreading out into a wide expanse, it comes to an end at the foot of
the Caucasus. 49. 34 peoples live in the lands which are bounded by the
Caspian Sea on the east and run along the shore of the Northern Ocean to
the river Tanai's and the Maeotid marshes to the west, extending along the
shore of the Cimmerian Sea in the south-west to the summit and gates of the
Caucasus in the south. 50. The nearer region is commonly called Albania
and the further region, lying beneath the Caspian Sea and mountains, the
land of the Amazons.

51. The dimensions of Asia have therefore been briefly outlined. I shall
now wander with my pen through what man knows of Europe. 52. Europe
begins in the east at the Riphaean mountains, the river Tanai's, and the
Maeotid marshes. Its border runs along the shore of the Northern Ocean
to Gallia Belgica and the river Rhine in the west. It then comes down to
the Danube, which is also called the Hister. This river runs from the south
towards the east and ends in the Euxine Sea. 53. On its east is Alania, in its
centre Dacia, where Gothia is also found, then comes Germany, the greater
part of which is held by the Sueves. In total, 54 peoples live here.

54. Now I shall set out the area that the Danube cuts off from barbarian
lands down as far as Our Sea.

55. Moesia has the mouth of the river Danube to its east; Thrace to its
south-east; Macedonia to its south; Dalmatia to its south-west; Istria to its
west; Pannonia to its north-west; and the Danube to its north.

56. Thrace has the Propontic Gulf and the city of Constantinople, which
was previously called Byzantium, to its east; part of Dalmatia and the gulf
of the Euxine Sea to its north; Macedonia to the west and south-west; and
the Aegean Sea to the south.

57. Macedonia has the Aegean Sea to the east; Thrace to the north-

83 Perhaps the river Hi in Kazakhstan.

84 Orosius thinks of the Caspian Sea as an ocean gulf.

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east; Euboea and the Macedonian Gulf to the south-east; Achaea to the
south; to its west are the Acroceraunian mountains lying by the straits of the
Adriatic Gulf - these hills lie opposite Apulia and Brundisium;*® to its west
is Dalmatia; to its north-west, Dardania; to its north, Moesia.

58. Achaea is surrounded by the sea on almost all sides. For to its east
is the Myrtoan Sea; to its south-east, the Cretan Sea; to its south, the Ionian
Sea; to its south-west and west, the islands of Cephalenia and Cassiopa;
to its north is the Corinthian Gulf; and to its north-east, a narrow ridge of
land by which it is joined to Macedonia, or rather to Attica. This place is
called the Isthmus. Corinth is found here which has Attica, and, at no great
distance, the city of Athens, to its north.

59. Dalmatia has Macedonia to the east; Dardania to the north-east;
Moesia to the north; Istria, the Liburnian Gulf and Liburnian Islands to the
west; and the Adriatic Gulf to the south.

60. Pannonia, Noricum, and Raetia have Moesia to the east; Istria to
the south; the Pennine Alps®^ to the south-west; Gallia Belgica to the west;
the source of the Danube and the frontier which divides Germany from
Gaul between the Danube and Gaul to the north-west; and the Danube and
Germany to the north.

61. The land of Italy runs from the north-west to the south-east. To its
south-west is the Tyrrhenian Sea and to its north-east, the Adriatic Gulf. The
part that joins continental Europe is blocked off by the barrier of the Alps

62. which rises up by the Gallic Sea on the Ligurian Gulf, cutting off first
the territory of the Narbonenses,*’ then Gaul and Raetia, and finally comes
down by the Liburnian Gulf.

63. Gallia Belgica has Germany and the river Rhine as its eastern
boundary; to the south-east are the Pennine Alps; to the south, the province
of Narbonensis; to the west, the province of Lugdunensis; to the north-west,
the British Ocean; and to the north, the island of Britain.

64. Gallia Lugdunensis curves in a long, narrow stretch of land,
half-surrounding the province of Aquitania. 65. On its east, it has Belgica;
and on its south, part of the province of Narbonensis, where the city of Arles
lies and the river Rhone enters the Gallic Sea.

85 The range lies in Albania and was a notorious hazard for shipping. See Horace, Odes,
1.3.20; Lucan, Pharsalia, 5.653; and Silius Italicus, Punica, 8.632.

86 The Pennine Alps are a western part of the Alpine range containing the Great St Bernard
Pass.

87 Gallia Narbonensis approximated to Provence. Oddly, Orosius here treats it as separate
from Gaul, though he then almost immediately includes it as part of Gaul.

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66. The province of Narbonensis, which is part of the Gauls, has the
Cottian Alps to the east;** Spain to the west; Aquitania to the north-west;
Lugdunensis to the north; and to the south, the Gallic Sea between Sardinia
and the Balearic Islands. Eacing it, where the Rhone enters the sea, are the
Stoechadae Islands.**

67. The province of Aquitania is drawn round in a curve by the flow
of the river Loire, which for the most part forms its boundary. 68. On its
north-west, it has the part of the Ocean called the Aquitanian Gulf; on its
west are the Spains; to the north and east, Lugdunensis; to the south-east
and south it borders the province of Narbonensis. 69. Spain in its entirety
is triangular and is almost an island, being surrounded by the Ocean and
Tyrrhenian Sea. 70. Its first angle, which looks to the east, joins onto the
border of Narbonensis, being flanked by the province of Aquitania on the
right and the Balearic Sea on the left. 71. The second angle stretches towards
the north-west, where the city of Brigantia,*® which lies in Gallaecia, has
erected a very tall lighthouse looking out towards Britain - a work with
which few can be compared.*' 72. Spain’s third angle lies where the islands
of Cadiz, which face Africa, look across to Mount Atlas over a gulf of the
Ocean.

73. Hispania Citerior*^ begins at the Pyrenean Passes in the east. Its
boundary extends westwards as far as the Cantabrians and Astures. Prom
there its territory passes through the Vaccaei and Oretani, who lie on its
western side, to its other boundary, the city of Carthage** which lies on Our
Sea.

74. Hispania Ulterior has the Vaccaei, Celtiberians, and Oretani to its
east; the Ocean to its north; the Ocean to its west; and the ocean strait of
Cadiz to its south, whence Our Sea, which is here called the Tyrrhenian Sea,
has its inlet.

75. In the Ocean are the islands called Britain and Ireland which lie
opposite part of the Gauls, looking towards Spain. These will now be
described briefly.

88 The Alps between north-west Italy and south-east France, ranging from Mont Cenis in
the north to the Maddalena Pass in the south.

89 The modem lies d’Hyeres.

90 Corunna.

91 For details of this lighthouse, see Hutter and Hauschild (1991).

92 Oddly, Orosius uses the divisions of Spain established in the Republican period, rather
than the five provinces to be found there in his own day.

93 Carthago Nova, i.e. Cartagena.

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76. Britain is an island in the Ocean that extends far to the north; to its
south it has Gaul. On the closest shore to which one can cross, there is a city
called the Port of Rutupus^"* which looks across to the land of the Menapians
and the Batavians, who lie at no great distance from the Morini to their
south. 77. The island is 800 miles long and 200 miles wide.®^

78. To its rear, where an infinite expanse of Ocean lies open, are the
Orkney Islands. Twenty of these are deserted and thirteen are inhabited.

79. Then comes the island of Thule,^** which is separated from the others
by an infinite stretch of water and lies to their north-west in the middle of
the Ocean. It is known to very few men.

80. The island of Ireland lies between Britain and Spain, its longer side
running from the south-west to the north-east. 81. Its closer parts, especially
from the promontory where the mouth of the river Scena®’ is found and the
Velabri and Leuceni live, look south-west across a great expanse of the
Cantabrian Ocean towards the Gallaecian city of Brigantia which faces it,
looking north-west. This island is nearer than Britain, smaller in size, but
more tractable because of the nature of its soil and climate.^* It is inhabited
by Scottish peoples.

82. Nearest to it is the island of Meuania,'®’ which is not small in size,
and is fertile as regards its soil. It is also inhabited by Scottish peoples.
These then are the boundaries of all of Europe.

83. Our ancestors, as I have mentioned, made Africa their third division
of the world, following a rule that did not take regard of size, but rather of
natural divisions, 84. for the Great Sea, which has its birth in the Ocean in
the west and then turns southwards, narrows the expanse of Africa which
lies between itself and Ocean. 85. Eor this reason some men, knowing that
Africa, while of equal length, was much thinner, thought it wrong to call it a
third part of the world, and considered it rather as part of Europe, preferring
to call it a portion of this second part of the world. 86. Moreover, as almost

94 Normally Rutupiae, the modern Richborough in Kent.

95 Orosius has made Britain too long; it is approximately 500 miles long (Orosius has
736). As regards the island’s width, the distance from the Welsh to the East Anglian coast is
around 300 miles, but many may feel Orosius’s figure of 184 miles is a fairer reflection of its
average width.

96 Probably Shetland.

97 The river Shannon; see Ptolemy, Geography, 2.2.3.

98 A curious comment. Pomponius Mela, 3.53, and Solinus, 22.2, praise Ireland’s pasture,
but both see its inhabitants as the worst sort of barbarian.

99 For a detailed discussion of this section on Ireland, see Freeman (2001).

100 The Isle of Man.

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all living or growing things are more tolerant and resistant to the extremes
of cold than those of heat, the heat of the sun has caused there to be much
more unknown and uncultivated land in Africa than the freezing cold has
produced in Europe. The reason why Africa seems to be altogether smaller
in its extent and number of people is that by its very shape it contains less
space and that because of its inclement climate it has more deserts. Its
description by provinces and peoples is as follows:

87. Libya, Cyrenaica, and the Pentapolis'®' lie in the first part of Africa
which begins after Egypt. 88. This region begins at the city of Parethonium
and the Catabathmon mountains.Thence it runs along the coast to the
Altars of the Phileni.'“ Beyond this region, and extending as far as the
Southern Ocean, live the Libyoethiopians and Garamantes. 89. On its east
lies Egypt; to the north, the Libyan Sea; to the west, the Greater Syrtes'®"*
and the Troglodytes, opposite whom lies the island of Calypso;'®^ and to the
south, the Ethiopian Ocean.

90. The province of Tripolitana, which is also called Subventana or the
region of the Arzuges (although those living all along the edge of Africa
are commonly called Arzuges) and where the city of Lepcis Magna is to
be found,'®® has to its east the Altars of the Phileni which lie between the
Greater Syrtes and Troglodytes; the Sicilian, or rather the Adriatic, Sea and
the Lesser Syrtes to its north;'®’ Byzacium as far as the Lake of the Salt¬
pans to its west;'®* and to its south, the barbarian Gaetuli, Nathabres, and
Garamantes who extend down to the Ethiopian Ocean.

101 Orosius is confused here. The Pentapolis is an alternative name for Cyrenaica, see Pliny,
Natural History, 5.5.31, not a separate set of towns as Orosius appears to think. ‘Libya’ here
is presumably Lower Libya, Libya Inferior, as Upper Libya, Libya Superior, was Diocletian’s
new provincial name for Cyrenaica. Orosius could, of course, have created three entities out
of one in error.

102 See 1.2.9 above.

103 Two Carthaginian brothers who died to save their country. Their story is told by Sallust,
The War against Jugurtha, 79. According to Strabo, 3.5.6, the altars themselves had already
disappeared in his day, some 400 years before Orosius wrote, but the toponym remained.

104 The Gulf of Sidra.

105 Various candidates have been offered for this island; perhaps the most plausible is
Djerba, but Malta and Gozo have also been suggested.

106 The Arzuges appear to have been a border tribe living between Tripoli and Tunis;
they are mentioned by Publicola when writing to Augustine {Letters, 46) and in the Synod of
Carthage (AD 419), canon 49.

107 TheGulf ofCabes.

108 Probably the Chot el-Djerid in Tunisia. The Peutinger Table, 7.4, notes that a lake lies
to the south of the Gai'amantes and adds, ‘there ai‘e great salt-pans which grow and decrease in
size according to the phases of the moon’.

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91. Byzacium, Zeugis, and Numidia.'®^ We have found that Zeugis was
not in the past a name used of a single region, but applied to the entire
province. 92. Byzacium is where the city of Hadrumetum'^® is to be found;
Zeugis is where Carthago Magna'" is to be found; and Numidia where
Hippo Regius"^ and Rusiccada"^ are found. They have the Lesser Syrtes
and Lake of the Salt-pans on their east; Our Sea, where it looks towards the
islands of Sicily and Sardinia, to their north; Mauretania Sitifensis to their
west; and to their south, the Uzarae mountains""' and beyond these, the
nomadic Ethiopian tribes who wander as far as the Ethiopian Ocean.

93. Mauretania Sitifensis and Mauretania Caesariensis"^ have Numidia
to their east; Our Sea to their north; the river Malua"*’ to their west; and to
their south. Mount Astrixis which divides the living land from the sands
which stretch away to the Ocean."’ In this area live the nomadic Gangine
Ethiopians.

94. Mauretania Tingitana is the end of Africa. It has the river Malua to
its east; to its north Our Sea as far as the Straits of Cadiz, which lie between
the two facing promontories of Habenna and Calpe;"* Mount Atlas and the
Atlantic Ocean to its west; to its south-west. Mount Hesperium;"® and to
the south, the tribes of the Autololes who are now called the Galaules and
extend as far as the Hesperian Ocean.

95. This is the end of all of Africa. Now I shall outline the positions,
names, and size of the islands which lie in Our Sea.

96. The island of Cyprus is surrounded by the Syrian Sea, which men
called the Issican Gulf, to its east; by the Pamphylian Sea to its west; by
the Cilician Strait to its north; and to its south by the Syrian and Phoenician

109 These are names of three of Diocletian’s African provinces. This opening ‘sentence’
appeal's to be a title for a section for the book, perhaps showing that Orosius had first planned
a different way of presenting his geography and has failed to correct himself here.

110 The modern Sousse in Tunisia.

111 Carthage.

112 The modern Annaba in Algeria.

113 The modern Skikda in Algeria.

114 The Aures range in Algeria.

115 These two areas were made separate provinces by Diocletian.

116 The modern river Moulouya.

117 Mount Astrixis appears only in Orosius. Its name is possibly related to the Astacures of
Ptolemy, Geography, 4.3. Orosius’s references to the division of cultivated land from the desert
seem to imply that he means the edge of the Erg Chebbi dune fields in Morocco.

118 Ceuta and Gibraltar.

119 The Anti-Atlas.

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seas. It is 175 miles long and 125 miles wide.*^®

97. The east of the island of Crete ends at the Carpathian Sea; the west
and north at the Cretan Sea; and the south at the Libyan Sea, which men also
call the Adriatic Sea. It is 172 miles long and 50 miles wide.*^'

98. The islands of the Cyclades - of which the most easterly is Rhodes;
the most northerly, Tenedus; the most southerly, Carpathus; and the most
westerly, Cythera - have to their east the shores of Asia; to their west, the
Icarian Sea; to their north, the Aegean Sea; and to their south, the Carpathian
Sea. In all, there are 53 Cyclades. Erom north to south they extend for 500
miles and from east to west for 200 miles.

99. Sicily is an island with three promontories.'^^ One, which is called
Pelorus, lies close by the city of Messana and looks towards the north-east.'^'*
The second is called Pachynum'^^ and looks south-south-east. Beneath it
lies the city of Syracuse. The third is called Lilybaeum.'^'* It is sited where
the city of the same name is to be found, and runs out towards the west.

100. Prom Pelorus to Pachynum, there are 159 miles'^^ and from Pachynum
to Lilybaeum, 177 miles.To the east, Sicily is girt by the Adriatic Sea;
to the south, by the African Sea which lies opposite the Subventani and the
Lesser Syrtes; to the west and north it is surrounded by the Tyrrhenian Sea,
and to the north-east as far as the east, by the Adriatic Gulf which separates
the people of Tauromenium in Sicily from the Bruttii of Italy.

101. Sardinia and Corsica are islands divided by a narrow strait of

120 The Roman mile measures only 1,620 yards, but even so, Orosius has inflated the size
of Cyprus which in reality is around 140 miles long (Orosius has the equivalent of 161 statute
miles) and only ai'ound 59 miles wide (Orosius has 115 statute miles).

121 Orosius’s measurements for Crete are better than those for Cyprus. He has the length
of the island approximately right at 158 miles, but has over-estimated its breadth at 46 miles
(in reality the widest part of the island is around 38 miles across).

122 Orosius’s choices for the edges of the Cyclades, particularly Tenedos and Cythera,
seem odd. His north-south measurement is too great, the distance from Tenedos to Carpathus
being some 280 miles as the crow flies (Orosius has 460), but his east-west measurement is
much closer, Rhodes to Cythera as the crow flies being 250 miles (Orosius has 230).

123 Oddly, Orosius does not say that Sicily is triangular, though it is much closer to this
shape than Spain which he has earlier described in this way.

124 The modem Punta di Faro.

125 The modem Cabo Passaro.

126 The modem Cabo Lilibeo, sometimes known as Cabo Boeo.

127 This is reasonably accurate: the distance as the crow flies is around 115 miles, while
Orosius has 106.

128 This is accurate: as the crow flies the distance is around 170 miles, Orosius has 172.

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20 miles.Of the two, the part of Sardinia which lies opposite Numidia
is dwelt in by the Caralitani, while in the part that faces Corsica live the
Ulbienses. 102. The island is 230 miles long and 80 miles wide.'^° To its
east and north-east it is washed by the Tyrrhenian Sea where it lies opposite
the port of the City of Rome, and to the west by the Sardinian Sea. To its
south-west lie, far away, the Balearic Islands; to its south is the Numidian
Gulf; and to its north, as I have mentioned, is Corsica.

103. Corsica is a jagged island with many promontories. To its east it
has the Tyrrhenian Sea and the port of the City; to its South, Sardinia; to
its west, the Balearic Islands; and to its north-west and north, the Ligurian
Gulf. It is 160 miles long and 26 miles wide.'^'

104. There are two Balearic Islands, the Greater and the Lesser,both
of which have two cities. The Greater has the Spanish city of Tarragona to
its north; the Lesser, Barcelona. Beneath the Greater island lies the isle of
Ebusus.'^^ To their east they look on Sardinia; to their north-east, the Gallic
Sea; to their south and south-west, the Mauretanian Sea; and to their west,
the Iberian Sea.

105. These are the islands that lie in the Great Sea starting from the
Hellespont*^"' and stretching as far as the Ocean which are considered,
because of their culture and history, to be the most famous.

106. I have now briefly listed, as far as I was able, the provinces and
islands of the whole world. Now I shall set out, to the best of my ability, the
specific misfortunes of each people: how they have inexorably arisen since
the beginning of the world, of what kind they were, and for what reasons
they occurred.

129 This is too great a distance, the Straits of S. Bonafacio are no greater than eight miles
across, Orosius has eighteen.

130 Reading 80 with Zangemeister, Arnaud-Lindet reads 280. Though many manuscripts
do have 280 at this point, it is difficult to believe that Orosius made an error of this magnitude
and a copyist’s en'or following on from the length of the island seems most likely. Orosius has
made the island slightly too long, and a little too thin; in reality it is around 175 miles long
(Orosius has 211), while its broadest point is around 85 miles across (Orosius has 74).

131 Orosius’s Corsica is too long and narrow: in reality, it is around 110 miles long (Orosius
has 147) and 50 miles wide (Orosius has 24).

132 Maiorca and Minorca.

133 Ibiza.

134 Which Orosius has failed to mention.

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1. Therefore after this world had been created and adorned, man, whom
God had created righteous and stainless, perverted and besmirched himself
and, as a consequence, the whole human race, with lustful sin. Straightaway
righteous punishment followed this unrighteous licentiousness. 2. Eor all of
us, unwillingly though we be, can either feel the force of the sentence of
God, the Creator and Judge - which has been established for sinful man and,
because of man, for the Earth, and which will endure as long as men dwell
on the earth - by denying it, or, by trusting in it, endure it. Those whose
obstinate minds are not persuaded by the truth of the Scriptures are branded
as guilty by the testimony of their own weakness.3. The most reliable
authors'^*’ very clearly state that the sea was poured over all the land and a
deluge unleashed upon it, so that the world became entirely sea or sky,'” and
that the human race was entirely destroyed, save for a few kept safe in the
ark as a reward for their faith and in order to create a new race. 4. Even those
who know nothing of times gone by, or of the Author of those times, have
born witness that this was so, learning of it by putting together the evidence
and hints given by stones which we see on far-flung mountains encrusted
with sea- and oyster shells and which often show signs of being hollowed
out by the waves.5. Now, although I could produce more compelling
proofs of this sort which are worth relating, let these two principal points be
sufficient, viz. that concerning the fall of the first man and the condemnation
of his offspring and life, and that concerning the damnation of the entire
human race which followed from it, 6. so I shall merely say that if pagan
historians have at some point dealt with our theme, these two arguments will
be expounded more fully, along with all the others, at the same place in my
history where they raise the issue in theirs.

135 The guilty Orosius has in mind are the Pelagians who refused to accept the doctrine
of original sin.

136 Orosius means the Bible, here Genesis 6-8. Perhaps there is also an implied criticism
of the reliability of pagan authors whom he goes on to attack.

137 cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 1.291.

138 cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, 15.264, Pomponius Mela, 1.6.2.

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4139

1. 1,300 years before the foundation of the City, Ninus the ‘first’ (as they
would have it) king of the Assyrians, took up arms out of lust to spread his
power abroad and lived a bloodstained life, spreading war across all of Asia
for 50 years.'‘‘“2. Rising up from the south by the Red Sea, he laid waste and
brought under his sway the far-flung shores of the Euxine Sea, and taught
the barbarian Scythians, at that time still a peaceful and innocent race, to
arouse their slumbering savagery, to know their own strength, and no longer
to drink their herds’ milk, but human blood: in short, as he conquered them,
he taught them how to conquer.*'*' 3. His last deed was to defeat in battle and
slay Zoroaster, the king of the Bactrians, whom men say was the discoverer
of the art of magic.After this, he was struck and killed by an arrow while
attacking a city that had rebelled from him.

4. On his death, his wife, Semiramis, succeeded him. She had her
husband’s spirit and took on his son’s appearance.''*^ She led her people,
who were already eager to spill blood, in the slaughter of other tribes for 42
years. 5. Indeed, this woman who was not content to inherit the boundaries
which her husband, the only warlike king at that time, had seized in his 50
years of war, crushed Ethiopia in war, drenched it in blood, and added it
to her domains. She also waged war on India which no-one save she and
Alexander the Great have invaded. 6. At that time hunting down and slaugh¬
tering peoples who lived in peace was a more cruel and serious matter than
it is now, because among them there were neither great conflagrations of
war abroad nor such a great cultivation of greed at home.*'*'*

7. This woman, ablaze with lust and thirsting for blood, lived amid

139 This chapter draws heavily on Justin’s Epitome of Trogus (here after Justin), 1.1—2.

140 Ninus is mentioned by Augustine, City of God, 4.6, who also draws on Justin. But
while Augustine criticises Justin and Trogus, commenting that ‘other more trustworthy
documents show that they were guilty of inaccuracy at times’, Orosius draws on Justin very
heavily throughout his Histories.

141 Orosius here notes the contagious nature of sin.

142 cf. Augustine, City of God, 21.14. The Zoroaster here is the Persian religious prophet.
He and Ninus were not contemporaries, Zoroaster’sbeing around 1,000 BC.

143 Semiramis may be Sammuramat, wife of Shamsi-Adad V, the king of Assyria from
824 to 811 BC, and mother of, and perhaps regent for, Adad-Nirari III (809-782 BC). Such an
identification would explain the assertion that she took her son’s appearance in order to rule.
Semiramis was to become a symbol of lust in Christian writing, see Dante, Inferno, canto 5
48-62.

144 Orosius’s point of comparison here is probably the Gothic sack of Rome which he is at
pains to play down throughout the Histories.

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unending fornication and murder. After she had killed all those with whom
she had enjoyed pleasures of the flesh - men she had summoned as a
queen, but detained as a prostitute - on illicitly conceiving a son, she vilely
exposed him. Then, when she learnt that she had indulged in incest with
him, she covered her personal disgrace by inflicting this crime on all her
people. 8. Eor she decreed that there should be none of the natural reverence
between parents and their children when it came to seeking a spouse and
that everyone should be free to act as he pleased.

5146

1. 1,160 years before the foundation of the City, Cornelius Tacitus,
among others, relates that the region neighbouring Arabia which was then
called the Pentapolis'"^^ was set ablaze down to its soil by Are from heaven,
speaking as follows: 2. Not far away are those plains which men say were
once fertile and supported great domains, but which were burnt up by a
thunderbolt and they say that traces of this disaster still remain and that the
very earth has been made solid and lost its power to be fertile. 3. Although
here he says nothing about the cities being consumed by fire because of the
sins of their inhabitants, as if he were ignorant of this matter, a little later he
forgets himself and reveals the facts by adding: 4 .1 grant that these famous
cities were indeed once set ablaze by fire from heaven, but believe that it is
the fumes from the lake that infected and corrupted the land.'"^^ 5. In saying
these things, albeit most unwillingly, about cities that were without a doubt
consumed because of the vileness of their sins, he admits that he knows this
and holds it to be the truth, and so openly shows that he does not lack belief
in what he has found out, but rather the willingness to expound that belief.
It is this matter that I shall now set down more fully.

6. On the borders of Arabia and Palestine where the mountains come
down on both sides to the low-lying plains, there were five cities: Sodom,
Gomorrah, Adama, Seboim, and Segor. 7. Out of these Segor was only a
small town, but the others were large and spacious, for the fecundity of the

145 Orosius here differs sharply from Justin, 1.2.10, who merely says that Semiramis’s
son killed her after she attempted to seduce him. Perhaps there is a hint here of the whore of
Babylon found in Revelation 17.5.

146 The material in this chapter draws on Genesis 14 and 19.

147 The name given to the five towns listed in Genesis 14 in the apocryphal Wisdom 10.6.

148 Both quotations are from Tacitus, Histories, 5.7. In the first quotation, our manuscripts
of Tacitus have ‘cities’ for ‘domains’ and ‘roasted’ for ‘made solid’.

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soil and the river Jordan, which ran through the plains and happily breaks up
into streams here, helped increase their fertility. 8. This abundance of things
was the cause of evil for this entire region which put these goods to bad use.
For from abundance came extravagance, and from extravagance came foul
lusts, men with men working that which is unseemly^'^'^ without even giving
thought to place, rank, or age. 9. And so God in His wrath rained down fire
and sulphur on this land and burnt up the entire region along with its peoples
and cities, damning them to eternal perdition that thenceforth they might be
a witness to His judgement. 10. The result is while the shape of the region
can still be seen, it is a region of ashes, and the sea has now poured over and
covered the middle of the valley that the Jordan used to irrigate.11. So
greatly was Divine Wrath inflamed over a matter which is thought of little
consequence that, because they used good for ill and had turned the fruit
of mercy into the nourishment of lust, the very earth on which those cities
stood was first burnt up by Are and then, being overwhelmed by the waters,
perished into eternal damnation as a warning to us all.*^'

1. And so, if it pleases those who spew forth at Christ, Whom we are showing
to be the Judge of Ages, all the spittle they have in them, let them look at the
crimes and punishment of Sodom and Rome respectively - things which I
ought not to set forth again for the simple reason that they are well-known
to all.'^^ 2. How happily would I accept their judgement, if they truthfully
admitted to what they see to be the case. 3. For although a few scattered men
mutter complaints about these Christian times in odd corners, I do not think
that this ought to cause any great annoyance, since the opinion and views of
the entire Roman people are clear from the unanimous judgement that they
delivered with one voice. 4. For they gave unassailable evidence that their
customary pleasures which had ceased for a short time did so for trivial,
inconsequential reasons, when they cried out of their own accord, Tf the
circus is brought back, nothing has happened to us’ - that is to say they felt
the swords of the Goths had done nothing to Rome, as long as the Romans
were allowed to watch their circuses.5. But, of course, a view held by

149 Romans 1.27.

150 The Dead Sea.

151 Orosius returns here to the theme of 1.3.1 that nature suffers for man’s sins.

152 A reference to the sack of Rome in AD 410.

153 Augustine, City of God, 1.32-33, talks in disgust of refugees who had fled from the

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many people, especially at the present, and after a long period of ease, is
that any small trouble which arises is an unbearable burden and so they rank
these most merciful warnings by which we are all at some time or other
admonished, higher than all the punishments of other peoples about which
they have heard or read. 6. Taking the demise of Sodom and Gomorrah as
my example, I warn them that they can learn and understand in what ways
God has punished sinners, in what ways He can punish them, and in what
ways He will punish them.'^"^

1. 1,070 years before the foundation of the City, the Thelcises'^^ and
Carsatii'^* waged a war of aggression with doubtful hope of success and
with no fruit of victory against Phoroneus, the king of the Argives, and the
Parrhasians.'^^ 2. Shortly afterwards the Thelcises were defeated in war, fled
from their homeland, and, being ignorant of the ways of the world, thinking
that they were taking themselves off from contact with all human habitation,
seized the island of Rhodes, which had previously been called Offiussa, as
if it would be a secure possession for them.*^®

3.1,040 years before the foundation of the City, a severe flood in Achaea
laid waste to almost the entire province. This happened in the reign of
Ogygius, who at that time founded and ruled over Eleusis and has given his
name to both the place and that epoch.

sack to Carthage asking for the way to the theatre. This may have been the inspiration for
Orosius’s moralising here. It is hard not to detect here an allusion to Juvenal’s comment about
the mob’s love of bread and circuses, panem et circenses. Satires, 10.81.

154 Orosius points to the past as an example of what will happen to Rome if the present,
mild warning is ignored.

155 Normally spelt Telchines. Orosius has taken this incorrect form from Jerome’s Chron¬
icle. The Telchines were a group of craftsmen-magicians/daemons, euhemerised by Jerome and
hence Orosius. Mythological accounts speak of them being later destroyed either by Jupiter
(Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.367) or Apollo (Servius, On the Aeneid (Ad Aeneidem), 4.377).

156 Normally the Caryates, i.e. the inhabitants of the town of Caiyae in Arcadia.

157 Phoroneus was, according to legend, the second king of the Argives. The Parrhasians
were the inhabitants of Arcadia. The reference to this war is taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr 230. but Orosius dates the war some 36 years earlier.

158 The defeat of Telchines was at the hands of the Caryates. These events are much more
separated in Jerome who places the Telchines’ occupation of Rhodes 50 years after their defeat,
Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 280.

159 ‘Achaea’ is an anachronistic reference to the Roman province of this name. Again,
Orosius’s date differs from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 260, who puts the flood 36 years later.

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1. 1,008 years before the foundation of the City,'“ the historian Pompeius
and his epitomator Justin tell us that in Egypt there was first an unaccus¬
tomed, and indeed infuriating, glut followed by perpetual and unbearable
famine, and that this was alleviated with Divine help by Joseph, a just and
wise man.'^' Among other things, this account tells us that: Joseph was the
youngest of his brothers who, fearing his great intelligence, carried him
off and sold him to some foreign merchants. 3. He was taken by them to
Egypt where, after a short time, because through his shrewd nature he had
learnt the arts of magic, he became the king’s favourite. For he was the
wisest interpreter of prodigies and the first man to establish a system for
understanding dreams. Indeed, nothing decreed either by human or divine
law seemed unknown to him. 4 . Therefore having foreseen the sterility of
the land many years in advance, he collected together its produce. Indeed,
so great were the proofs of his wisdom that his advice seemed to come not
from a man, but from God. 5. Joseph’s son was Moses whose beauty, quite
apart from his inheriting his father’s knowledge, stood him in good stead.
But when the Egyptians suffered from scabs and tetter,^^^ after being warned
by an oracle, they drove him and the sick from the borders of Egypt to stop
the plague spreading to more people.^^^ This is Justin’s account.

6. But since the very same Moses whom they themselves state to have
been a wise and clever man, has written at greater length and more truthfully
about these deeds since they were done by himself and his people, our first
task is to enlighten the ignorance of these historians using Moses’ account
which they concede is reliable and authoritative.'®'' 7. Then we must refute
the malicious lies of the Egyptian priests who through a use of low cunning,
which is absolutely obvious, have tried to erase the memory of the manifest
anger and mercy of the True God. They have tried to erase the memory of
these events by dispersing it in a garbled account so that they should not be

160 Orosius has diverged in his dates here from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 282, who places
the period of abundance 18 years earlier than the date given by Orosius.

161 Pompeius Trogus, author of the History of Philip which in reality was a universal
history. It is now known only through the work of Justin. Pompsius's floruit was probably the
reign of Augustus, lustin's floruit is much disputed: the second and third centuries AD are the
main candidates, though the fourth has also been suggested.

162 An unidentihable skin disease.

163 Taken virtually verbatim from Justin, 36.2.6-12.

164 Orosius’s source is Genesis 41-47. EaiJy Christian and Jewish opinion was unanimous
in believing that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch.

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seen to be denigrating their idols by showing that God, by Whose counsel
these ills were foretold and with Whose help they were avoided, should
rightly be worshipped. On the other hand, if we were to be more generous,
we could assume that they have simply forgotten these facts. 8. Eor it was
through the foresight of our famous Joseph,'® who was a servant of the
True God and took a pious and vigorous concern for the creatures of his
lord, that they had plenty as if they were true priests. But because they were
false priests, they did not grieve with the rest of the hungry.'® Truly those
who receive favours forget them, while those who suffer remember 9. For,
although histories and annals are silent, the very land of Egypt bears witness
to the happenings of these times. It was at this time taken into royal owner¬
ship and leased back to its owners who to this day have continuously paid a
fifth part of all their produce over as tax.'®*

10. The great famine occurred in the reign of the Egyptian king of
Diopolis'®® whose name was Amosis.'^® He lived at the time when Baleus
ruled over the Assyrians, and when the Argives were ruled by Apis.'^'
11. Before these seven years of famine were seven years of plenty whose
abundant produce would have been allowed to perish as carelessly as it grew
prolifically had our Joseph not skilfully gathered it up and stored it and
hence saved all of Egypt. 12. He acquired all the money for Pharaoh and all
the glory for God, rendering most justly tribute to whom tribute was due and
honour to Whom honour is due. He took in all the people’s herds, land,
and wealth, but after making an agreement that they would pay a fifth of
their produce in tax, released the Egyptians themselves who had sold their
bodies along with their land for a ration of corn.'’*

165 Orosius claims Joseph for Christianity here.

166 Genesis 47.22, states that the priests received a food allowance from Pharaoh. Orosius
is suggesting that true priests would have suffered with their flock or distributed their allow¬
ance among them.

167 Cicero, In Defence ofMurena {Pro Murena), 20.42.

168 This statement is simply false.

169 Egyptian Thebes.

170 Ahmose Nebpehtire, founder of the XVIII Dynasty (1550-1525 BC). Much ink has
been spilt in vain on determining the date of Exodus; see Josephus, Against Apion, 1.15, and
Theophilus, Defence addressed to Autolycus {Apologia ad Autolycum), 3.20.

171 Orosius appears to have his chronology wrong here. According to Jerome, Amosis
ruled from A Abn 294 to A Abr. 318, but according to Orosius’s dates, the famine should start
in A Abr. 263. Jerome dates Baleus’s rule from A Abr. 264-315 and that of Apis from A Abr.
271-305.

172 Romans 13.7.

173 See Genesis 47.14-16.

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13. Who would believe that this Joseph, whom God set up as the author
of Egypt’s salvation, would have slipped from their memory in so short a
time that a little later they made slaves of his sons and all his race, afflicting
them with burdens, and decimating them with massacres? 14. So it is no
wonder if some can now be found who, although they turned aside the
sword hanging over their necks^^'^ by saying that they were Christians, feign
ignorance of, or defame, the very name of Christ by Whom alone they were
be saved and assert that they are suffering because they live in the times of
those by whose virtues they have been saved.

1. 810 years before the foundation of the City, Amphictyon ruled in
Athens, being the second king after Cecrops.'’® In his time, a great flood
destroyed the majority of the peoples living in Thessaly. A few escaped
by taking refuge in the mountains, especially on Mount Parnassus, an area
where Deucalion was king. 2. On the twin peaks of Parnassus he received,
fed, and fostered those who fled to him on their rafts and because of this,
men say that he saved the human race.^’^

3. Plato tells us that at this time there were a great number of plagues
and outbreaks of terrible diseases in Ethiopia which was all but consumed
by them.'’® 4. And in case someone thinks that the times of God’s wrath and
the fury of war are divided from each other by mere chance, it was at this
time that father Liber conquered India and left it dripping with blood, full
of corpses, and polluted with his lusts - and this was a race which had done
no harm to anyone, but was content to live in its naturally peaceful state.

174 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, 5.21.62.

175 Orosius returns to the assertion that the sack of Rome was a trivial event and was so
because God mitigated it because of the presence of Christians in the city, see 7.39.

176 Cecrops is normally taken, as here, as the first king of Athens. He was succeeded by
Cranaiis and then Amphictyon.

177 Again, Orosius has diverged from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 495, who places the flood
41 years later. The narrative of his account draws heavily on Justin, 2.6.9-11. Deucalion is
normally presented as the pagan Noah figure. Here while Orosius retains his connection with
flooding, he is careful to demythologise him. See also Justin, 2.6.11.

178 Taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 498, which makes direct reference to Plato. See
Plato, Timaeus, 22c.

179 The retention of the ‘father’ element of Liber Pater (i.e. Dionysius) emphasises the
cruelty of this pagan father as opposed to the mercy of the Christian God the Father. Orosius
is again eager to emphasise the innocence of the Indians, cf. 1.4.6.

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1. 805 years before the foundation of the City, Pompeius and Cornelius
tell us that terrible ills and unbearable plagues descended upon Egypt.'*®
Now these two, when they both set down what they want to say about the
Jews, leave me somewhat confused as they differ from one another. 2. Eor
Pompeius, or rather Justin, speaks as follows: when the Egyptians suffered
from scabs and tetter, after being warned by an oracle, they drove Moses
and the sick from the borders of Egypt to stop the plague spreading to more
people. Moses was made leader of the exiles and secretly stole the Egyptians ’
sacred vessels. The Egyptians attempted to recover these by armed force,
but were driven back to their homeland by storms.

3. However Cornelius speaks in this way about the same events: A great
number of writers agree that when a disease which rotted the body arose
in Egypt, King Bocchoris, who had sought a remedy from the shrine of the
oracle of Hammon, was ordered to purge his kingdom of that race of men
who were hateful to the Gods, and to drive them away to other lands. 4 .
After this crowd had been sought out, rounded up, and abandoned in the
desert, while all the rest of them wept helplessly, one of the exiles, Moses,
told them that they could expect no help from gods or men but that they
should trust in him as their heaven-sent leader and that straight away with
his aid they would put an end to the troubles which then afflicted them. 5.
So Cornelius says that it was the Egyptians who drove the Jews into the
desert and afterwards carelessly adds that it was with the aid of Moses as
their leader that they averted the miseries that had befallen them in Egypt.'*'

180 Pompeius, see Justin, 36.2; Cornelius is Tacitus, here. Histories, 5.3.

181 This passage of Tacitus is notoriously difficult and Orosius’s quotation differs from
the accepted reading. Tacitus reads: Sic conquisitum collectumque vulgus, postquam vastis
locis relictum sit, ceteris per lacrimas torpentibus, Moysen unum exulum monuisse ne quam
deorum hominumve opem expectarent utrisque deserti, sed sibimet duce caelesti crederent,
primo cuius auxilio praesentis miserias pepulissent. Whereas Orosius’s quotation of him reads:
sic conquisitum collectumque uulgus postquam uastis locis relictum sit, ceteris per lacrimas
torpentibus Moysen, unum exulum, monuisse, ne quam deorum hominumue opem exspectarent
sed sibimet duci caelesti crederent, primo cuius auxilio praesentes miserias pepulissent. First,
Tacitus’s phrase utrisque deserti ‘for they had been abandoned by both of them’ has dropped
out of Orosius’s quotation. Second, Orosius’s quotation places ‘leader’ in the dative case,
duci, hence making this word refer to Moses. However, it is likely that Tacitus’s original text
read duce, in the ablative, which would lead to the phrase meaning ‘but they should trust to
themselves, as that was to be their heaven-sent leader, through whose help they should first
have ended the troubles that afflicted them’. In other words, in the original reading Moses
receives no divine sanction. Orosius is either the victim of a corrupt manuscript, or guilty

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Therefore it can be seen that he has obscured some of the actions which
Moses took great pains to carry out. 6. Moreover, Justin adds that when
Moses was exiled along with his people, he stole the sacred vessels of the
Egyptians which the Egyptians tried to recover by force of arms, but were
compelled to return home because of storms. So he has added some more
of the facts that Cornelius concealed, though not all of them. 7. Therefore,
since they bear witness to the fact that Moses was a great leader, the account
that he himself gives of his deeds and words is to be preferred.'*^

8. When the Egyptians were torturing the people of God - that is the
race of Joseph, by whose aid they had been saved - forcing them to work
as slaves and, moreover, had cruelly ordered them to murder their own
offspring, God commanded through His messenger, Moses, that His people
should be freed to serve Him. 9. When He was scorned by the arrogant
Egyptians, He inflicted terrible punishments upon them and they, burdened
and crushed by ten plagues, finally forced those whom they had not wanted
to let go, to make haste to leave them.

10. So, after their rivers had turned to blood, bringing them, as they
burnt with thirst, a remedy for their punishment that was worse than the
punishment itself; after filthy, vile frogs had crawled everywhere, both clean
and unclean; after fiery sciniphes'®^ from which there was no escape, made
all the air hum; 11 . after dog-flies'®'* had crept, wriggling horribly, over their
inner members, bringing sharp torments as painful as they were shameful;
after the sudden ruin and general slaughter of all their flocks and beasts
of burden; after their sores were boiling, ulcers oozing over their bodies,
and, as they preferred to put it, ‘scabs and tetter’ broke out all over them;
12 . after hail mixed with fire had laid low men, herds, and trees alike; after
clouds of locusts had eaten up everything, seeking out even the roots of their
seedlings; after a nightmarish darkness which was so thick that it could be
touched and was funereal in its duration;'®^ 13. and, finally, after the death
of all the first-born in the entire land of Egypt in a storm of bereavement
that fell on all alike, those who had not yielded to God when He gave His
command, now yielded to Him when He punished them. But soon, after
falsely repenting, they dared to pursue those they had freed and were to pay

of hasty reading and finding that which he wished to find in his text, or, more seriously, of a
deliberate manipulation of the text.

182 i.e. that found in Exodus 1-14.

183 An unknown form of stinging insect, see 7.27.6.

184 Probably the stable-fly {stomoxys calcitrans), see Augustine, Sermons, 8.5.

185 cf. Augustine, Sermons, 20, for a similar description of clouds.

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the ultimate penalty for their sinful obstinacy.

14. Eor their king summoned the entire army of Egypt, complete with
chariots and cavalry, and led it against the Jews in their wanderings. We can
deduce this army’s size from this single, but very important, fact - namely
that 600,000 men had previously fled from it in terror.'®* 15. But God, the
Protector of the oppressed and the Avenger upon the stiff-necked, suddenly
divided the Red Sea. He paralysed its waves, pushing them back on either
side, and held its flanks upright like the faces of a mountain, so that, attracted
by seeing an unhindered passage, the good should enter onto a road of salva¬
tion that they had not seen, but the wicked into a trench of death that they
had not foreseen. 16. So when Hebrews had safely walked over the dry
earth, the mass of raised-up water poured back into its place to their rear
and all the Egyptian horde, along with their king, were overwhelmed and
killed, and this entire province which had previously been wracked with
plagues was now emptied by this final slaughter. 17. Very clear evidence of
these events still exists, for the tracks of the chariots and ruts made by their
wheels can been seen not only on the shore, but also on the sea bed as far as
it is possible to see there. And if this evidence is at any time disturbed, either
by chance or human meddling, straight away by God’s will the winds and
waves restore it to its pristine condition 18. in order that anyone who has not
learnt the fear of God through study of our manifest Religion, will at least be
terrifled of His anger from this example of the vengeance He has enacted.'®^

19. At this time, a great, unending heat blazed up so that it is said that the
sun, carried along an unaccustomed course, did not merely warm the entire
world with its heat, but roasted it with Are. This overbearing heat could be
endured neither by the Ethiopians for whom it was stronger than usual nor
by the Scythians for whom it was completely unusual. Some authors who do
not grant God His ineffable might, looking for empty excuses, have weaved
out of this event the ridiculous story of Phaethon.'®®

186 This is the number of Hebrews who left Egypt, see Exodus 12.37.

187 Orosius is the only author who mentions this phenomenon.

188 In Greek mythology Phaethon was Apollo’s son who lost control of his father’s chariot
causing conflagrations on earth. Orosius has drawn his note from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
495, but misplaced it. Jerome firmly links the stoiy of Phaethon to that of Deucalion that
Orosius has already used at 1.9.3. For a theory that this myth alludes to the explosion of a large
asteroid in early antiquity, see Spedicato (2008).

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1. 775 years before the foundation of the City, 50 acts of parricide were
committed in a single night among the offspring of two brothers: Danaus
and Egyptus.'*® After this, Danaus, who had devised these great crimes,
was driven from the kingdom he had obtained in such a shameful fashion
and took himself off to Argos. There he ungratefully persuaded the Argives
to rise against Sthenelas, who had taken him in when he was a penniless
fugitive, drove him from his kingdom, and ruled in his stead.'®”

2. At the same time, the cruel Busiris, the blood-stained tyrant of Egypt,
exercised his cruel hospitality and practised his even crueller religion.
He sacrificed the innocent blood of his guests to toast the gods who were
accomplices in his crime: a crime that men certainly find execrable, I would
inquire whether the gods found it so too.'®'

3. At that time too occurred the parricide mixed with incest of Tereus,
Procne, and Philomela, and to this can be added an even more horrible crime
than either of these: the banquet of cursed food, when a mother, having
learnt of the violated chastity of her sister and how her tongue had been cut
out, killed her own little boy and his father ate him.'®^

4. In the same epoch Perseus crossed from Greece to Asia, conquered
the barbarian tribes there after a long and bloody war, and immediately after
his triumph gave his name to the vanquished - for the Persians are named
after Perseus.'®^

1. But now 1 am forced to confess that the goal of bringing to its end an
account of the great evils of this time compels me to pass over many more
events and to shorten my account of all of them. Indeed, I would be unable

189 Dated by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 550, 61 years later. In the myth, Danaus’s 50
daughters are married to Egyptus’s 50 sons and murder them on their wedding night. To
increase the horror of pagan times, Orosius suppresses the normal version of the myth, which
is given by Jerome, where one of the brides, Hypermnestra, spares her husband with whom
she was later happily reunited.

190 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 530.

191 Busiris was a mythical king of Egypt who sacrificed strangers on an altar of Zeus. The
altars of Busiris were a byword for cruelty in antiquity; see Claudian, On the Rape of Proser¬
pine {De Raptu Proserpinae), 2.43, for a reference from Orosius’s own day. Orosius’s notice is
taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 558.

192 Embroidered from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 645.

193 See Herodotus 7.61.7-150.

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to pass through such a thick forest, unless I were to fly forward from time to
time by leaps and bounds. 2. Eor since the kingdom of the Assyrians lasted
for 1,160 years down to the time of Sardanapulus,'®"^ was ruled by almost 50
kings, and since during that time war was almost always being waged either
against them or by them, what end would there be to this account, even if we
were merely to try to list these matters, not to speak of describing them? 3.
This is all the more true as we must not pass over the history of the Greeks
and must give special attention to that of the Romans.

Now it is not my task to list the foul deeds, which have become even
fouler in the telling, of Tanatalus and Pelops 4. in which we learn that when
Tantalus, the king of the Phrygians, had scandalously seized Ganymede,
the son of Trous, the king of the Dardanians, he kept him in the even viler
filth of conjoined combat.'®^ These matters are established by the poet
Phanocles'^® who records that a great war broke out because of this, 5. or
perhaps he wants this same Tantalus to be seen as devotee of the gods and
to have seized and prepared the boy for the lusts of Jupiter as his family
pimp. This was, after all, the man who did not hesitate to serve up his son,
Pelops, at one of Jupiter’s banquets. 6. It would also be dreary to recount
the battles, however large or small, between Pelops and Dardanus and his
Trojans. These things are the staple of stories and so not listened to with
great attention.

7. I shall also pass over the stories concerning Perseus, Cadmus, the
Thebans and Spartans - a tangled tale of alternating grief written about
by Palefates.'^’ 8. I shall be silent on the matter of the Lemnian women’s
crime, pass over the lamentable flight of Pandion, the king of the Athenians,
and ignore the hatred, perversion, and parricide, hateful even to heaven, of
Atreus and Thyestes. 9.1 omit Oedipus, the murderer of his father, husband
of his mother, brother of his children, and stepfather to himself. I prefer
to keep silent over how Eteocles and Polynices worked hard to fight each

194 The figure of 1,160 is probably a textual corruption; Augustine, City of God, 4.6, and
Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1197, both have 1,240. It is easy to see how a careless scribe, or
perhaps Orosius, could have mistranscribed MCCXL as MCLX.

195 A euphemism for sodomy.

196 Phanocles was an elegiac poet of the late fourth century or third century BC. He wrote
‘Lovers or Beautiful Boys’, a catalogue of the homosexual loves for young boys of sundry gods
and heroes. Orosius has taken the reference from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 660.

197 A rationalising mythographer of the late fouith century BC whose book ‘On Unbeliev¬
able Things’ attempted to provide rational explanations for myths; for example, Pegasus is
explained away as the name of Bellerophon’s ship. Orosius has drawn his reference from
Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 700.

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other lest one of them should not become a parricide, 10. and have no wish
to recall the deeds of Medea, she who was wounded by a savage love^^^
and rejoiced in the death of her little children, the pledges of her love, or
whatever deeds were done at that time. We might wonder how men could
endure that from which they say even the stars fled.^^®

1. 560 years before the foundation of the City, there was a horrendous
conflict between Crete and Athens. After both sides had suffered terribly,
the Cretans used their victory in an even bloodier fashion. 2. They cruelly
commanded that the sons of Athenian nobles be devoured by the Minotaur,
which I do not know whether is best described as a bestial man or as a
man-like beast, and so fattened this misshapen monster by ripping out the
eyes of Greece.

3. In these same days the Lapiths and Thessalians fought their battles
which have too much renown. 4. Palaephatus^®' states in the first book of
his Wonders that the Lapiths believed, and therefore called, the Thessalians
centaurs because when their cavalry charged into battle the horses and men
seemed to possess but a single body.

J4202

1. 480 years before the foundation of the City, Vesozes,^'’^ the king of Egypt,
attempted to either embroil in war or add to his kingdom regions which
were divided by almost the entire heavens and sea. He first declared war
on the Scythians, sending ambassadors in front of him to dictate terms of

198 The quotation is from Ennius, Medea, perhaps drawn here from Cicero, On Fate {De
Fato), 15.35. See Jocelyn (1967)/r. CIII.

199 This long recusatio (the discussion of matters through a denial that they will be
discussed) shows Orosius’s familiaiity with ancient rhetorical theoiy and techniques.

200 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 787, though Orosius dates the
story 83 years before Jerome.

201 To be identihed with the Palefates of 1.12.7 above. Orosius has drawn his reference
from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 776.

202 This chapter draws heavily from Justin, 2.3.8-17.

203 A comaption of Sesosis or Sesostris, perhaps the Pharaoh Senwosret III of the IP*’
Dynasty (1878-1841 BC). Orosius’s story combines a distant memory of this king’s defeat
with the subsequent collapse of Egyptian military power and Egypt’s conquest by the Hyksos
in the Second Intermediate Period, c. 1640 BC.

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surrender to his enemy. 2. At this, the Scythians stoutly told the ambas¬
sadors that their king, a very wealthy man, was a fool to wage war on
poor people, for he had more to be afraid of than they, given the uncertain
outcome of war, the lack of prizes, and obvious dangers of loss for himself.
They added that they would not wait for him to come to them, but would, of
their own accord, set out on the road to plunder. 3. Nor was there any delay;
deeds followed words. Eirst, they forced the terrified Vesozes to flee back
to his kingdom and then attacked the army that he had deserted, seizing all
its equipment for war. They would have laid waste to all of Egypt had they
not been forced back by the difficulties caused by the marshes. 4. They then
immediately headed back towards their homeland and forced Asia, where
they indulged in endless slaughter, to pay them tribute. They remained there
for fifteen years, during which time there was no peace, and were finally
summoned back to their homeland by the complaints of their womenfolk
who threatened to have children by the men of neighbouring tribes if they
did not return.

15204

1. During this period, in Scythia two young princes, Plynos and Scolop-
etius, were driven from their home by a faction of noblemen. They took
with them large numbers of the Scythian youth and, after conquering the
Themiscyrian Plains, settled on the shore of Pontic Cappadocia by the river
Thermodon.^®^ Here, after ravaging the nearby lands for a long time, they
were killed during an ambush in a plot devised by their neighbours. 2. The
wives of this group, driven hysterical by being exiled and widowed, took up
arms and, so that all of them should have the same spirit by being in the same
condition, killed the men who had survived. Having inflamed themselves in
this way, they avenged with their own blood their slaughtered husbands by
exterminating the neighbouring tribes. 3. When they had obtained peace
by force of arms, they lay with foreigners. They immediately killed their
male offspring, but carefully reared the females, burning off the right-hand
breasts of these young girls in order that they should not be impeded in
shooting arrows. Eor this reason they were called Amazons.^“

4. The Amazons had two queens, Marpesia and Lampeto, who divided

204 This chapter draws heavily on Justin, 2.4.

205 The modern river Terme in Turkey.

206 The derivation of ‘Amazon’ from the Greek a-mazon, meaning ‘without a breast’, was
popular in antiquity, but its validity is dubious.

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their army into two and drew lots to take in turn the tasks of waging war and
looking after their homes. 5. Now when they had subdued most of Europe,
captured a number of cities in Asia, and founded others including Ephesus,^®’
they recalled the main part of their army which was loaded down with the
richest booty, but the remaining part, which, along with Queen Marpesia,
had been left to watch over their Asian Empire was slaughtered in an attack
by their enemies.

6. Marpesia’s daughter, Sinope, took her place. She crowned her
outstanding reputation for manliness with life-long virginity. 7. She excited
so much fear and admiration among the peoples who had heard of her
reputation that Hercules, when he was ordered by his master to produce
the queen’s arms for him, gathered together the picked youth of all the
Greek nobility, as if he had been sent into inescapable danger. He had nine
warships fitted out, but was still not happy with this force and preferred to
attack the Amazons by surprise and surround them while they were off their
guard.

8. At that time, two sisters, Antiope and Orithyia, ruled the kingdom.
Hercules, coming by sea, subdued them as they were unprepared, unarmed,
and had become slothful from the inactivity which peace brings. Among the
great number of dead and prisoners were two sisters of Antiope: Melanippe
taken by Hercules, and Hippolyte taken by Theseus. 9. Theseus married
Hippolyte, but Hercules restored Melanippe to her sister, receiving the
queen’s arms as the price of her ransom.

10. Penthesilea, about whose bravery among men in the Trojan War we
have the clearest evidence, ruled after Orithyia.

1. O the sorrow caused by the shame of men’s errors! Women, who were
exiles from their own land, invaded, passed completely through, and laid
waste to Europe and Asia - that is the largest and most powerful parts of the
world. They held them for almost 100 years, overthrowing many cities, and
founding others. Still the burden of these times must not be imputed to men’s
wretchedness. 2. The people who were once called the Getae and now are

207 According to Pausanias, 7.2.7, the claim that the Amazons had founded Ephesus was
made as early as Pindar. See also Tacitus, Annals, 3.61.

208 The Ninth Labour of Hercules. Orosius has not used the common version of the myth
where the queen of the Amazons was named Hippolyta.

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called the Goths,whom Alexander declared should be shunned, at whom
Pyrrhus trembled, and whom even Caesar declined to fight, abandoned
their homeland, and on leaving it, all entered the provinces of the Roman
Empire with all their force. But though long regarded with terror, they then
sought an alliance with the Romans that they could have exacted by arms,
by entreaties, and 3. though they were free to seize as much as of the world
that lay subjected beneath their feet as they wanted, they asked for a small
home not of their choice, but subject to our decision. The only people whom
unconquered kingdoms feared, offered themselves to guard the kingdom
of the Romans. 4. But the gentiles in their blindness, when they do not see
things brought about by Roman courage, will not believe that they have
occurred through the faith of the Romans nor agree to concede, though they
know it to be true, that through the gift of the Christian Religion, which
joins all peoples in a family of faith, these men, whose womenfolk laid low
the greater part of the world with immense slaughter, have now become
their subjects without a battle being fought.

1. 430 years before the foundation of the City there took place the Rape
of Helen, the alliance of the Greeks, the assembling of the 1,000 ships, the
ten years’ siege, and, finally, the famous destruction of Troy.^‘“ 2. Homer,
who is head and shoulders above the front-rank of poets, has made clear
in his marvellous poem what nations and peoples this storm swept up and
afflicted in the ten years of this, the cruellest of wars. It is not our task now
to set this affair out in order once again, for this would be too long for our
work and these matters are common knowledge. 3. Nevertheless, those who
have learnt about the length of that siege and the atrocities, slaughter, and
enslavement that took place on Troy’s fall, might see if they have any justi¬
fication to be angry with the present state of affairs, whatever it is like, when
their enemies,^" through the workings of God’s hidden mercy, pursue them
over every sea to offer peace and surrender hostages, although they could
have armed themselves for battle and pursued them in war in over every

209 There is no justification for the identity of these two peoples, but it was a commonplace
in antiquity. It also serves Orosius’s purpose to show that the troubles of his day are trivial
compared to those of the past and so he adopts it with alacrity.

210 Jerome, Chronicle, dates the rape of Helen to A Abr. 827 (= 437 AUC) and the fall of
Troy to A Abr. 835. (= 429 AUC).

211 i.e. the Goths.

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land. Moreover, in case it is thought that they have done this through a love
of peace and quiet, they are offering to risk themselves against other peoples
to keep the peace for the Romans.

1. School exercises have engraved on our memory how a few years later
Aeneas, an exile from Troy, arrived in Italy which took up arms against
him, the war he waged for three years, and the peoples that he ensnared in
hatred and did to death.^'^ 2. In the midst of these times, too, occurred the
exile and shipwrecks of the Greeks, the disaster of the Peloponnesians who
were broken by the death of Codrus,^'^ unknown Thracian tribes rising once
more in war, and a general period of instability throughout Asia and Greece.

19214

1. 64 years before the foundation of the City, Sardanapulus, the last king
of the Assyrians reigned, a man more corrupt than women.^'^ Arbatus, his
prefect, who was then governing Media, saw him among a crowd of prosti¬
tutes dressed as a woman and working purple on a distaff, and cursed him.^'^
The Medes rebelled, forcing the king to fight them and on his defeat, he cast
himself onto a blazing funeral pyre.^'^ From that time the kingdom of the
Assyrians passed into the hands of the Medes.

2. Then after the many wars that burst out on all sides and which it
does not seem at all useful to describe one by one, power passed in one
way or another to the Scythians and the Chaldeans, and then returned once
again by the same route to the Medes. 3. One should reflect on what a short
time it took for such ruin and disasters to befall these peoples, and on the
changing fortunes in these wars, during which so many great kingdoms
were transformed.

212 Virgil’s Aeneid was a standard school text in Orosius’s day.

213 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 948. Codrus was the king of the Athenians who
engineered his death after an oracle had revealed that in this way Athens would win the war.
Orosius has suppressed this pagan element of the legend.

214 This chapter draws on, and abbreviates heavily, Justin, 1.5-1.7.2.

215 Sardanapulus is a difficult figure to identify. His legend does not suggest a memory of
the last vigorous ruler of Assyria, Assurbanipal (668-627 BC), though this is often suggested.
It is more probable that the far feebler Sinshaiishkun (627-612 BC), at the end of whose rule
Nineveh fell, is intended.

216 Orosius later, 2.2.2, also spells this name as Arbaces.

217 Jerome, Chronicle, dates the death of Sardanapulus to A Abr. 1189 = 75 AUC.

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4 . After this, Phraortes ruled the Medes. He spent the 22 years of his
reign in almost continual war against the Assyrians and Persians.^'* 5. After
Phraortes, Diodes became king. He was a man with great experience in
arms and always at war. Having expanded his kingdom greatly, on his death
he handed it over to Astyages.^'^ 6 . Astyages had no male offspring, but
had a grandson, Cyrus, born among the Persians.^^® But this Cyrus as soon
as he came of age gathered together a band of Persians and declared war
on his grandfather. 7. Then Astyages, forgetting the crime which he had
once done to Harpalus - when he had killed his only little son and served
him up as a feast for his father and, in case happy ignorance should lighten
this most horrible of bereavements, taunted him with the vile banquet,
showing to the father the head and hands of his son - 8. forgetting this
deed, he made Harpalus his commander-in-chief, who, on accepting the
command, immediately betrayed him, and handed over his troops to Cyrus.
When he learnt this, Astyages quickly gathered together the troops he had
with him, marched on Persia himself, and renewed the conflict all the more
bitterly, telling his men that if anyone were to leave the battle in fear, they
would meet him, sword in hand. 9 . Now when the army of the Persians was
driven back a second time and slowly yielding to the Medes, who fought
keenly because of this threat, the Persians ’ mothers and wives ran up to
them, begging them to return to the battle. When their menfolk delayed,
they lifted up their clothes and showing the shameful parts of their bodies,
asked whether they wished to flee into the bellies of their mothers or those
of their wives.^^^ 10 . Shamed by this display, the Persians returned to battle
and launching a charge, forced those who had previously made them flee,
to flee themselves. Astyages was then captured. Cyrus took nothing from
him save his kingdom, and put him in charge of the largest of the Hyrcanian
tribes. Indeed, he himself had no wish to return to Media. This was the end
of the Empire of the Medes. 11 . But the cities that had paid tribute to the
Medes now defected from Cyrus, something which cost him many wars.^^^

218 Phraortes ruled from 647-625 BC.

219 Orosius appears to have confused Diodes, normally taken as ruling before Phraortes,
with Cyaxares who ruled from 625-585 BC.

220 The son of his daughter, Mandane, whom he married to the Persian Cambyses after an
ill-omened dream; see Herodotus, 1.107.

221 Taken verbatim from Justin, 1.6.13-14.

222 Taken virtually verbatim, and with slight omissions from Justin, 1.6.16-17. Astyages
ruled from 585-550 BC.

223 This phrase is drawn virtually verbatim from Justin, 1.7.2.

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1 . At this time,^^'* the Sicilian Phalaris became tyrant of Agrigentum and
ravaged its land. 2. His disposition was cruel, and he was crueller still in
what he practised, working every form of infamy against innocent men.^^^
Unjust though he was, he once came across a man whom he punished justly.
3. A certain bronze-smith, Perillus, feigning friendship with the tyrant,
made him a bronze bull, thinking it a fitting present, given his cruel nature.
He skilfully set a door in its side as a place to thrust in the condemned. It
was designed so that as the man trapped inside was roasted by the fire placed
beneath it, the hollow bronze amplified the sound of his tortured voice and,
struck by the cries of the dying man, sent forth an echoing sound which
seemed, horrific spectacle as it was, more like the lowing of a cow than
cries of a man. 4. Phalaris embraced the artefact, but loathed the artificer.
He found a way to exercise both his vengeance and cruelty, for he executed
the smith in his own device.

5. A little earlier. King Aremulus ruled among the Latins. He flourished
amidst his crimes and impiety for eighteen years, but was finally struck
down by a thunderbolt by divine judgement and ended his unripe years with
this well-ripened punishment.^^’

6. So let the Latins and Sicilians choose now, if they want, whether they
would have preferred to have lived in the days of Aremulus and Phalaris by
whose punishments innocent lives were tortured, or in these Christian times
when Roman emperors, set right above all by Religion, after suppressing
tyranny for the good of the state, do not even punish the injuries done to
them by tyrants.^^*

224 Orosius presumably means at the same time as Cyrus took power. This would show
him following Jerome who has the two reigns running in parallel (Phalaris, A Abr. 1457-65;
Cyms, A Abr. 1457-85).

225 The cruelty of Phalaris (c. 570-c. 549 BC) was a topos in antiquity; see Claudian, On
the War with Gildo {De Bello Gildonico), 1.186-89, and Against Rufinus (In Rufinum), 1.253.

226 See the description in Silius Italicus, Punica, 14.213-17.

227 Orosius has embroidered Jerome’s {Chronicle, A Abr. 1142) comment on Aremulus,
‘who afterwards died struck by lightning because of his impiety’. Jerome has Aremulus ruling
for 19, not 18 yeai's.

228 Probably a reference to Honorius’s treatment of the usurper Attains, see 7.42.9.

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1 . 30 years before the foundation of the City, there was a great war waged
with all their body and soul between the Athenians and the Lacedaemo¬
nians. In it, both were compelled by the deaths suffered on each side to
withdraw from, and abandon, the conflict, as if they had been defeated by
one another.

2 . Then, the sudden incursion of the Amazons and Cimmerians into Asia
caused devastation and slaughter far and wide for a long period of time.^“

3 . Twenty years before the foundation of the City, the Lacedaemonians
waged war against the Messenians because their young women had been
spurned at a solemn Messenian sacrifice. They fought for 20 years with
untiring fury, entangling the entire strength of Greece in their ruin.^^'

4 . The Spartans had sworn great oaths, binding themselves not to return
home until they had stormed Messena. But after they had been worn out
by a long ten-year siege and gained no fruit of victory, they were recalled,
troubled by the complaints of their wives who spoke accusingly of their
long bereavement and the dangers of sterility. 5. They held an assembly
and, fearing lest their perseverance would result in their loss of offspring
rather than the destruction of the Messenians, they picked out the men in
army who had come as reinforcements after the oath had been taken, sent
them back to Sparta and allowed them to lie freely with all the women'P^ an
act of licentiousness which was certainly notorious enough, but in fact of
no use to them at all.^^^

6. The Lacedaemonians pressed on with their campaign, stormed
Messena by trickery, and forced the vanquished into slavery. But they, after

229 This appears to be Orosius embroidering Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 931, where he
notes that The Peloponnesians fought with the Athenians’. It is unclear why Orosius has
transposed the entry in time, placing it over 300 years later than Jerome.

230 This appears to be an embroidering and transposition of an entry in Jerome, Chronicle,
A Abr. 940, which reads: ‘Asia was invaded by both the Amazons and Cimmerians’. Again,
Orosius has post-dated the entry by over 300 years.

231 This appears to be a transposition of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1273, dating nine years
after the foundation of Rome, which reads The Spartans waged war on Messenia for 20 years’.
Orosius draws the bulk of his account of the war from Justin, 3.4-5. The First Messenian War
is conventionally dated c. 735-715 BC.

232 Taken verbatim from Justin, 3.4.5; the moralising that follows is Orosius’s own.

233 Orosius omits the end of Justin’s account where we are told that the offspring of these
unions were known as the Partheniae, who, on reaching the age of 30, left Sparta and founded
Tarentum. Presumably, the useless nature of the act was that it failed to provide Sparta with
extra manpower as had been envisaged.

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enduring the whips and chains of their bloody servitude for a long time,
shook off their yoke, took up arms, and renewed the war7^"^ 7. The Lacedae¬
monians chose the Athenian poet, Tyrreus,^^^ as their war leader. They were
put to flight in three battles and made up for their lost army with a band
of slaves whom they freed. 8. But when, while they were still thinking of
abandoning the fight from fear of its dangers, their leader, Tyrreus, who
was both poet and general, composed a song and recited it at a meeting,
they were enflamed once more and soon rushed into battle. The conflict was
fought with such determination that rarely has a more bloody battle blazed
forth. Victory Anally went to the Lacedaemonians.

9. The Messenians however renewed the war for a third time. Nor was
there any delay on the part of the Lacedaemonians.^^® Both sides took many
troops as reinforcements. Meanwhile, the Athenians prepared to attack
the Lacedaemonians on a different front while they were concentrating on
events in Messena.^^’ 10. But the Lacedaemonians did not sleep. While they
themselves dealt with the Messenians, they sent the Peloponnesians to give
battle to the Athenians. The Athenians were weaker than their opponents,
because they had sent a small fleet to Egypt,^^® and so were easily defeated
in a naval battle. When their fleet returned and their number of troops
increased, they challenged the victors to battle. 11. The Lacedaemonians,
postponing their Messenian campaign, turned their arms on the Athenians.
There followed a number of serious battles with no clear results and eventu¬
ally both sides ended the war with the matter undecided.

12. It is very important to realise that Sparta is the same as the city of
Lacedaemona and that for this reason the Spartans are called Lacedaemo¬
nians.

13. The Lacedaemonians were recalled to their war against the
Messenians and, in order not to give the Athenians any respite, made a treaty
with the Thebans to the effect that if they would wage war on the Athenians,
Sparta would restore to them the Boeotian Empire which they had lost at
the time of the Persian War. 14. Such was the frenzy of the Spartans that

234 The Second Messenian War, c. 650-c. 620 BC.

235 i.e. Tyrtaeus. Orosius derives his Athenian nationality from Justin, 3.5.5.

236 The Third Messenian War, 464^59 BC. Orosius has compressed his account, giving a
false impression that the third war closely followed the second in time.

237 The First Peloponnesian War, 461^45 BC.

238 Orosius has misread, or misunderstood, Justin, 3.6.6, here which reads The Athenians
had few resources at this time having sent a fleet to Egypt’. Orosius has eiToneously read
parcae, ‘few’ with classe, ‘fleet’, a grammatical impossibility. The expedition took place in
c. 454 BC.

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while they were involved in two wars, they did not hesitate to engage in
a third as long as they gained enemies for their foes. 15. The Athenians,
rocked by this storm of war, chose two leaders: Pericles, a man of proven
ability, and Sophocles, a writer of tragedies.^^^ They divided their army and
ravaged the lands of the Spartans far and wide, adding many cities in Asia
to the Athenian Empire.^‘'° 16. Thence for 50 years war raged by land and
sea but never with a clear victory, until the Spartans, whose resources were
dwindling and who had betrayed their word, became a disgrace even in the
eyes of their allies.^'*'

17 . But this volume of troubles which beset Greece for so many ages
does not count for much today, when it is thought intolerable that pleasure
should be interrupted from time to time and that our lusts be hindered for a
little while. 18 . The difference between men of that time and those of today
is this: they tolerated the intolerable with equanimity because since they had
been born among, or rather nurtured by, these events, they had no knowl¬
edge of anything better, but the men of today on the other hand, accustomed
to a perpetually serene life of tranquillity and delight, are annoyed by every
little cloud, however small, that brings unease. 19 . Would that they might
pray to Him Who drives away even these small fears and by Whose gift they
have this continual peace unknown in other times.

20 . Since I remember that when I defined the order of my work in
a number of limbs, so to speak, I promised that I would write from the
foundation of the world to the foundation of the City, 21 . this is the end of
the volume where we have written an account from the foundation of the
world. The following volume will begin at the foundation of the City and
contain an account of the evils of those times which are more close-knitted
as men by then were better versed and more refined in the practice of vice.

239 Sophocles served as a strategos (elected general) in Athens’ expedition against Samos
in 440 BC.

240 Taken virtually verbatim from Justin, 3.6.10-11.

241 The section has been drawn from Justin, 3.7.13-15. The 50 yeai's are those extending
from the First Peloponnesian War to the Peace of Nicias. Orosius follows Justin in believing
that when they began the Archidamian War in 431 BC, the Spartans broke the terms of the
Thirty Years Peace which they had made in 445 BC.

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1.1 believe that the fact that God created man in this world can have escaped
no one at this present time. From this it follows that because of man’s sin,
the world is implicated in his crimes, and in order to bring our excesses
to heel, the very earth on which we live is punished with all other animals
dwindling away and its helds becoming barren.'

2. Now, if we are God’s creation, we are rightly subject to His ordinances.^
For who loves a thing more than He who made it? Who can better order and
control it than He who has made and loves it? Who can more wisely and
hrmly order and control what he has made than He who foresaw what ought
to be made and Who has brought what He foresaw to fruition? 3. Therefore,
all power and order comes from God. Those who have not read of this, feel
it to be the case, and those who have read it, recognise it to be so.

And if power comes from God, this is especially the case with kingdoms
from which all other power proceeds. 4. So, if there are a number of
kingdoms, it is right that there is one supreme kingdom under which all the
sovereignty of the rest is placed. In the beginning, this was the kingdom of
Babylon, then the kingdom of Macedon, after that the African kingdom,^
and finally that of Rome, which remains in place to this day. 5. Through this
same ineffable ordering of things, the four principal kingdoms which have
been pre-eminent to differing degrees, have occurred at the four cardinal
points of the world: the kingdom of Babylon to the east; that of Carthage

1 See 1.3.2 and 1.5.9.

2 Augustine also uses the notion of the dispensatio Dei, God’s conscious ordering of the
world. His use of it is, like Alexander Pope’s, to argue for a benevolent purpose to history that
is indiscernible to human reason. While Orosius does adopt this position on occasions, here
his purpose is to demonstrate that Rome’s rule over the world is divinely ordained. Unlike
Augustine, who argues that history’s purpose is radically unknowable, Orosius in the Histories
wishes to show that God’s purpose can be deduced from the past.

3 i.e. Carthage.

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to the south; that of Macedon to the north; and that of Rome to the west."*
6. Between the hrst and the last of them, that is to say Babylon and Rome,
just as in the interval of time between an old father and his young son,
come the short-lived and intermediate periods of the African and Macedo¬
nian kingdoms. These fulhlled roles like those of a teacher and guardian,
and came into being through force of circumstances rather than from any
right of succession.^ I shall now take care to expound as clearly as possible
whether this is true.®

1. The first king among the Assyrians who was able to gain pre-eminence
over all the rest was Ninus.^ After Ninus was killed, Semiramis, his wife and
the ruler of all Asia, rebuilt the city of Babylon and decreed that it should be
the capital of the Assyrian kingdom. 2. Eor a long time the kingdom of the
Assyrians stood with its power unshaken, but when Arbatus, whom some
call Arbaces, the governor of the Medes and himself a Mede, slew his king,
Sardanapulus, in Babylon, he handed over both the name of the kingdom
and its power to the Medes.

3. So, in the same year in which Procas, the father of Amulius and Numitor
and the grandfather of Rhea Silvia, who was the mother of Romulus, began
to rule among the Latins, the kingdom of Ninus and of Babylon was given
to the Medes.* 4.1 can show from the fact that all histories of antiquity begin
with Ninus and all histories of Rome with Procas, that all this came to pass
through the ineffable mysteries and the deepest judgments of God and not
by human action or chance.^ 5. Moreover, from the hrst year of Ninus’s

4 For a similar argument from cardinal points, see Irenaeus, Against Heresy {Adversus
Haereses), 3.11.8, who uses the four cardinal points to ai'gue for the logical existence of four
gospels.

5 i.e. they are not part of the family, just necessary for the son’s upbringing.

6 Orosius’s theory of the four kingdoms is based on the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar and
the prophet Daniel and their inteipretation as found in the book of Daniel (Daniel 2.31-45,
7.1-18). For a full discussion of the many problems involved in this book’s interpretation, see
Rowley (1935).

7 See 1.4. Orosius phrases his statement carefully here, making Ninus not the first king per
se, but the first important king.

8 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 1198 = 66 years before the foundation of Rome.

9 As regai'ds non-Roman history and Ninus this is tnae of Orosius’s two main sources,
Jerome and Justin. Orosius needs to begin his history of Rome with Procas for his parallelism
to work, but earlier kings are attested by Jerome {Chronicle, A Abr. 1142 = 122 years before
the foundation of Rome; A Abr. 116 = 103 years before the foundation of Rome), Livy, 1.3,

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empire to the time when Babylon was rebuilt by Semiramis is a period of
64 years, and there is equally a period of 64 years from the first year when
Procas began to reign down to the foundation of the City carried out by
Romulus.'® In Procas’s reign, therefore, the seed of the future Rome was
sown, although it had not yet begun to germinate, and in the same year of
the rule of that same Procas, the kingdom of Babylon fell, though the city
of Babylon still stands.

6. When Arbatus defected to the Medes, the Chaldeans, who success¬
fully defended Babylon against the Medes, held on to a part of the kingdom
for themselves. 7. So sovereignty over Babylon rested with the Medes,
but possession of the city itself with the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans,
however, because of this royal city’s ancient dignity, preferred not to call
it after themselves, but rather themselves after it. It is for this reason that
Nabuchodonosor" and all the other kings after him down to Cyrus are not
counted in the ranks or line of famous kings, although you may read that
they were mighty through the power of the Chaldeans and famous because
of the name of Babylon.

9. Therefore we see that Babylon was humbled by its governor Arbatus
in the same year when, under King Procas, the seed of Rome was, to speak
precisely, sown, and that Babylon was finally overthrown by King Cyrus in
the same year when Rome was first liberated from the rule of the Tarquin
kings.10. So it was at this exact conjunction of time that the one fell and
the other rose. The former suffered the heel of foreign domination for the
first time, while the latter threw off the haughty rule of her masters for
the first time. The former, like a dying man, abandoned its inheritance, the
latter, though but a youth, recognised itself as its heir.'^ It was at this time
that the Empire of the East perished and that of the West arose.''*

11. Now, in order not to tarry longer with my words, I shall place myself

and Virgil, Aeneid, 6.767.

10 Orosius’s pai'allel appears to be original. It cannot be taken from Jerome, who speaks
of Babylon being rebuilt 43 years after Ninus’s rule began, A Abr. 1, and who has a gap of 66
years between the reign of Procas and the foundation of Rome.

11 i.e. Nebuchadnezzar.

12 This synchronism again appears to be original. It is not found in Jerome where Cyrus
captures Babylon in A Abr. 1457 = 193 AUC, but Tarquin is not deposed until A Abr. 1505 =
241 AUC.

13 Orosius is possibly drawing his reader’s mind to the rise of Octavian here.

14 The notion of Rome as a second Babylon is also found in Augustine, City of God, 18.2
and 18.22, as is the notion of Rome’s rising at the time of Babylon’s fall. City of God, 18.27.

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in the jaws of madmen,but only in order to be freed from them by the
truth.'®

1 . Ninus ruled for 52 years and, as I have said, his wife, Semiramis,
succeeded him. She ruled for 42 years and in the middle of her reign estab¬
lished Babylon as the capital of her kingdom.

2. Almost 1,164 years after its foundation, Babylon was stripped of its
wealth, and had its kingdom and its own king taken from it by the Medes
and Arbatus, who was king of the Medes and also the governor of Babylon.
Nevertheless, the city itself remained unscathed for sometime after this.

3. Similarly, Rome after the same number of years, namely almost 1,164,
was stormed by the Goths and Alaric who was their king and a Count of
the City. She was stripped of her wealth, but not her kingdom - for she still
remains and rules in safety. 4 . Nevertheless, the order of all these parallels
between the two cities, which was brought about by mystic decree, has been
kept to this degree: that there the prefect Arbatus invaded the kingdom, and
here the City’s prefect. Attains, tried to become its ruler,'* but here, unlike
at Babylon, because of the merits of our Christian ruler,Attalus’s attempt
was made in vain and came to nothing.

5.1 thought that these things deserved recording in order that, above all,
those who bicker foolishly about these Christian times might learn from this
partial revelation of the great mystery of the ineffable judgments of God that
the One God has ordained these events - for the Babylonians at the begin¬
ning of the cycle and now for the Romans at its end - and might learn that
it is through His clemency that we are alive and that our life is wretched
through our own excesses.

15 Perhaps a reference to Daniel in the lions’ den.

16 cf. John 8.32, ‘the truth shall make you free’.

17 This chronological synchronism is essential for Orosius’s scheme of the four empires
of the world, but Augustine would not have agreed. He believes that Babylon stood for 1,240
years, commenting that ‘it endured so long that Rome has not yet reached the same age’, City
of God, 4.6.

18 Priscus Attains, the Praefectus Urbi or Prefect of Rome (essentially the mayor of the
city), was proclaimed emperor by the Visigothic leader Alaric in AD 409, allowing himself to
baptised as an Arian in order to further his ambitions. The following year Alaric deposed him
in a curious ‘uncrowning’ ceremony near Ariminium. See 7.42.7-10 for Orosius’s account of
the attempted usuipation.

19 i.e. the emperor Honorius, AD 395^23. See 7.37.11 for similar comments.

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6. Behold, how Babylon and Rome had a similar beginning, similar
power, a similar size, a similar age, similar goods, and similar evils, but their
ends and decline are not similar. Babylon lost her kingdom; Rome retains
hers. Babylon was left an orphan on the death of her king, Rome is secure
and her emperor safe. 7. And why has this happened? Because there punish¬
ment for its disgraceful lusts was visited upon the person of the king,^° but
here the restrained moderation of the Christian Religion was preserved in
the person of the king.^' There, where there was no reverence for religion,
licentious frenzy eagerly took its fill of desires; here there were Christians
who gave pardon,^^ Christians who were pardoned,^^ and Christians through
whose memory and in whose memory pardon was given.^"^

8. Therefore let them cease to execrate Religion and exasperate the
patience of God through which they have the chance of going unpunished
for this vice too, if they were ever to stop their sinning. 9 . Let them recall,
along with me, the times of their ancestors, times troubled by wars, cursed
by their crimes, soiled by dissension, and continually miserable - times at
which they can rightly tremble, because they were so and ought of necessity
to ask that they should be so no more: 10 . they surely need to ask the One
Sole God, Who, through His hidden justice, once allowed these things to
come to pass, but now has revealed His mercy and vouches that they shall
be no more.

I shall now set down these past times more fully, starting from the birth
of the City and going through its history in order.

425

1 . In the 414*'' year after the fall of Troy in the sixth Olympiad, which is
celebrated with competitions and games in the Greek city of Elis every fifth

20 i.e. Sardanapulus.

21 Strikingly Orosius is happy to use ‘rex’ of the emperor, something that would have
deeply shocked earlier generations of Romans. The usage allows Orosius to continue with his
theme of the four kingdoms. Orosius praises the restraint, continentia, of Honorius again at
7.37.11.

22 i.e. the Goths who sacked Rome. Orosius makes great play of the Goths’ Christianity,
quietly forgetting their Arianism. The point is made more extensively at 7.37.5-11.

23 i.e. the inhabitants of Rome.

24 i.e. the saints, perhaps particularly Peter and Paul, see 7.39.1

25 Orosius’s account of the regal period at Rome draws heavily, though in a highly abbrevi¬
ated fashion, on Florus, 1.1.

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year, four having passed from one celebration to the next,^® the city of Rome
was founded in Italy under the twin leadership of Romulus and Remus7^

2. Straightaway Romulus stained his rule with parricide-* and followed
this with an equally cruel act by giving a dowry of their husbands’ and
fathers’ blood^^ to the Sabine women who had been seized contrary to
custom^° and shamefully married off. 3. It was in this way that Romulus,
having first murdered his grandfather Numitor,*' and then his brother
Remus, seized power and founded the City. He dedicated his kingdom with
the blood of his grandfather, its walls with the blood of his brother, and its
temple with that of his father-in-law, and then gathered together a band of
criminals by promising them immunity from punishment.

4 . His first field of battle was the forum of the City - a sign that wars,
both external and civil mixed together, would never be absent from the
realm. 5. He seized the womenfolk of the Sabines, a people he had seduced
by making a treaty and holding games with them, in a fashion as dishonour¬
able as the criminal way by which he then defended what he had seized. 6.
After a long period in which he had fought off by force of arms the Sabines’
leader, Titus Tatius, an old man who walked in the noble ways of piety, he
made him a partner in his rule, and then almost immediately killed him.*^
7. After this, he stirred up a war which is still little known, but was fought
with large forces, against the men of Veii and captured and sacked the town

26 The Roman dating system uses inclusive dates. Oddly, Orosius speaks as if the Olympics
were still being held at the time of writing, whereas in fact Theodosius had abolished them in
AD 393.

27 Orosius has contradicted himself, as at 1.17.1 he dates the fall of Troy to 430 years
before the foundation of Rome. His date also differs from that of Jerome who places the
foundation of Rome in the last yeai* of the sixth Olympiad and for whom the fall of Troy
occurred 429 years before the foundation of the city, and from that of Eutropius, 1.1, who
places the foundation of Rome on 21 April, in the third year of the sixth Olympiad and 394
years after the destruction of Troy. At 6.22.1 Orosius dates the foundation of Rome to 752 BC.
This differs by one year from the commonly used ‘Varronian’ date of 753 BC.

28 cf. Augustine, City of God, 3.6.

29 This is an adaptation of Virgil, 7.318, who speaks Lavinia’s dowiy of Trojan and

Rutulian blood. Augustine, City of God, 3.13, also makes this point.

30 ‘Sabine women... contrary to custom’ - this is a slight adaptation of Virgil, Aeneid,
8.635.

31 An egregious error for Amulius, Numitor’s brother; see Justin, 43.2.10.

32 Titus Tatius was killed at Lanuvium while sacrificing. Romulus’s decision not to go to
war to avenge him led some commentators to assume that he had connived in the murder. Livy,
1.14, is entirely neutral on the subject. Orosius, like Augustine, City of God, 3.13, deliberately
takes a black view of the matter to support his interpretation of Roman history.

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of CanusiumP 8. Once he had taken up arms there was no respite, since he
and his men feared that they would suffer from shameful want and dismal
famine^* at home, if they should ever pursue a peaceful, quiet life.

I will now list, as briefly as possible, these continuous struggles which,
given the number of men involved, were always bloody affairs. 9 . Hostilius
Tullius devised their way of fighting, and, being confident that he had
trained the youth of the City well, attacked Alba.^^ For a long time both
sides were uncertain of victory, though certain to suffer disaster. At last,
they put an end to these terrible events and their precarious results by a
duel fought between three pairs of brothers.^® 10 . But the peace was broken
again and Mettus Fufetius, who was caught while plotting treachery during
the war against Fidenae, paid the price for his duplicity by having his body
torn apart - it was pulled into pieces by chariots galloping in different direc¬
tions.^’ 11 . When Ancus Marcius led Rome, the Latins often gave battle and
were sometimes defeated.^* Tarquinius Priscus defeated all his neighbours
and the then-powerful twelve tribes of Etruria in innumerable battles.’® The
men of Veil were defeated, but not subdued, by Servius Tullius’s continual
onslaught."^® 12 . Tarquinius Superbus obtained the kingdom through the
criminal murder of his father-in-law,'*' held onto it through his cruelty

33 Quoted from Fionas, 1.1.11. Veil is the modern Isola Farnese some 10 miles to the north
of Rome. Canusium is the modern Canosa di Puglia in Apulia.

34 These two phrases are taken from Virgil, Aeneid, 6.276 and 3.367, respectively.

35 Hostilius Tullius was the third king of Rome (conventionally 672-641 BC). Orosius
has suppressed any mention of the second king, Numa (conventionally 715-673 BC), as his
peaceful reign jars with his purpose to depict early Rome as a violent and lawless state.

36 Orosius’s account of the reign of Tullus Hostilius is an abbreviated version of that found
in Fionas, 1.1.3. The three brothers are the Horatii (Roman) and the Curiatii (Alban). While
Orosius is emotionally detached as regards the battle, Augustine, City of God, 3.14, uses it to
demonstrate the hon'ors of the eaidy Roman state.

37 Fidenae is the modern Castel Giubileo some five miles from Rome. Mettius was king of
Alba and hence, given Alba’s conquest by Hostilius, a nominal ally of Rome. Orosius’s account
is again an abbreviated version of Fionas, 1.1.3.

38 Ancus Marcius was the fourth king of Rome (conventionally 640-617 BC). He is
mentioned by Fionas, who does not, however, record Ancus’s military exploits. Ancus’s
campaigns against the Latins are mentioned by Eutropius, 1.5, and discussed at greater length
by Livy, 1.33. His campaigns against the Latins are also mentioned by Eutropius, 1.5.

39 Tarquinius was the fifth king of Rome (conventionally 616-579 BC). Orosius’s account
of his military campaigns is drawn from Florus, 1.1.5.

40 Servius Tullius was the sixth king of Rome (conventionally 578-535 BC), Orosius takes
his note from Florus, 1.1.5.

41 Tarquinius Superbus was the seventh and final king of Rome (conventionally 534—510
BC). His murder of his father-in-law is noted by Eutropius, 1.7, and alluded to by Florus, 1.1.7.

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towards its citizens, and lost it through the shameful rape of Lucretia. While
he indulged in vice at home, he showed outstanding ability abroad'*^ - he
captured the powerful cities of Ardea, Oricolum, Suessa, and Pometia in
Latium,'*^ and what he did against the Gabii was achieved through a trick
of his own devising, a punishment devised by his son, and the might of
Rome."*"*

13 . But the number of wrongs the Romans had endured for 243 years
under the heel of kings is shown by the fact that they not only expelled one
king, but also foreswore the title and power of kingship 4® 14 . Eor if they
had merely held the arrogance of one man as culpable, they ought simply to
have expelled him and kept the honour of royalty for better men.

15 . After the Romans had expelled their kings from the City, thinking
that they themselves should look to their own interests rather than that some
one individual should lord it over their liberty, they created the consuls
under whom the affairs of the growing state, as if it had now reached its
manhood, were tested in even more daring deeds."'*’

1 . 244 years after the foundation of the City, Brutus, the first Roman consul,
not only equalled the first founder and king of Rome in his acts of parri¬
cide, but took care to excel him."'’ He summoned his two adolescent sons
and, at the same time, his wife’s two brothers, the young Vitellii, before a
public meeting on the trumped-up charge that they wished to restore the
kings. He had them beaten with rods and then executed with his axe."'®

42 This is the judgment of Livy, 1.53, ‘He proved as skilled a leader in war as he was
wicked in peace-time’. Augustine, on the other hand, is entirely hostile to Tarquin; see City
of God, 3.15.

43 Orosius does not realise that Suessa Pometia, a vanished city in Latium, was one town
not two.

44 Tarquin took Gabii, a town 12 miles to the east of Rome, by having his son Sextus
inveigle his way into its inhabitants’ confidence. Sextus became the town’s leader and executed
its leading citizens, making the city easy to conquer. The full story is found in Livy, 1.53-54.

45 The figure of 243 years is taken from Eutropius, 1.8, and is also mentioned by Augus¬
tine, City of God, 3.15.

46 These sentiments, and the notion of the Roman state reaching adulthood, are taken from
Florus, 1.2.8 and 1.3.9.

47 Sarcasm is a recun'ent feature of Orosius’s narrative style. Brutus’s consulate is normally
dated to 245 AUC1509 BC.

48 A reference to thefascis, an axe surrounded by rods, symbolising the consul’s right to
inflict corporal and capital punishment. The story of Brutus’s sons is taken from Florus, 1.3.9,

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2. He himself fell when he met Amms, the son of Superbus, face to face,
sharing a common death with him during the war against Veii and the
supporters of the Tarquins.'** 3. Porsenna, the king of the Etruscans, was
the strongest proponent of royal rule, and marching on the terrihed City,
terrorised, isolated, and besieged it without ceasing for three years. Had
Mucius not moved the enemy to admiration through his steadfast endurance
when his hand was roasted, nor Cloelia done the same by the marvellous
boldness of her crossing over the river, the Romans would surely have been
compelled to suffer either being imprisoned by their tenacious foe or being
subjected to slavery once more by the return of their king.^°

4 . After these events, the Sabines gathered their forces from all over
their lands and marched on Rome in great military force. In the ensuing
panic, the Romans created a dictator whose authority and power outstripped
that of the consul, an act that proved to be a great help to them in the war.®'

5. There followed the secession of the plebs from the fathers.®^ The
people, already aroused by a variety of grievances, armed themselves and
set up camp on the Sacred Mount when the dictator Marcus Valerius was
conducting a military levy.®® What could have been more horrendous than
this wickedness, when a body severed from its head wished to destroy that
from which it drew its life?®** It would have been the end of the name of

where again Brutus is criticised. This is a striking change from the earlier account of the same
story by Livy, 2.4-5, where Brutus’s sons ai‘e assumed clearly to be guilty and Brutus’s patri¬
otism in executing them is praised. Augustine also mentions Brutus’s consulate in negative
tones. City of God, 3.16.

49 For this episode see Florus, 1.4.10, and Eutropius, 1.10.

50 The comment about Porsenna and the stories of Mucius Scaevola and Cloelia are told
by Fionas, 1.4.10. Orosius curiously suppresses the story of Horatius keeping the bridge which
directly precedes those of Scaevola and Cloelia in Fionas, who firmly links them as the three
prodigies (prodigia) of Rome.

51 A reference to the dictatorship of Titus Larcius in 501 BC and recorded in Eutropius,
1.12, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1513 = 249 AUC. The dictator held power alone, but his
office lasted only six months.

52 A reference to the so-called conflict of the orders. The fathers are the patricians, the
hereditary aristocrats of Rome; the plebs, the rest of the population.

53 The Sacred Mount lies three miles from Rome by the river Anis. The dictator concerned
is normally known as Manlius Valerius. Orosius may have been working from an already
corrupt manuscript or he, or a later copyist of his work, misread the abbreviation M’ as M.

54 The first secession of the plebs occurred in the dictatorship of Manlius Valerius in
494 BC. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1523 = 259 AUC, notes the secession and describes it as
‘sedition’. Eutropius, 1.13, while not mentioning the secession, does speak of ‘sedition’ -
though he notes that it was brought on by the oppression of the Senate and consuls. As usual,
Orosius takes the side of the aristocracy in discussing civil strife; this is in contrast to Augustine

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Rome because of this wickedness within had not a reconciliation hastened
to remove it, before, indeed, secession knew its own name.

6. Apart from the obvious calamities brought by external wars, the City
was hard pressed and threatened by a pitiable succession of hidden disas¬
ters. In the consulate of Titus Gesonius and Publius Minucius, probably the
two most abominable of all ills - famine and disease - seized hold of the
weary City, and so, though there was a brief respite from war, there was no
respite from death.

7. The people of Veil from Etruria, no mean foe, uniting their neigh¬
bours’ forces with their own, rose up in war and were met by the consuls,
Marcus Eabius and Gnaeus Manilius. After the Romans had sworn a
solemn oath, vowing not to return to their camp unless they were victo¬
rious, there was so fierce a fight with equal losses for victor and vanquished
alike that the consul Marcus Eabius refused the triumph given to him by
the Senate on the grounds that since most of the army had been lost and
his fellow-consul Manlius and the former consul Eabius had been killed in
the fight, there ought rather to be a period of mourning after the Republic
had suffered so many losses.®* 8. The extent to which the Eabian clan,
renowned for its numbers and vigour, orphaned the republic on its fall, after
it had been allotted the task of waging the Veientine War, is attested to by
the names, infamous to this day, of the river that destroyed them and the
gate that sent them forth.®’ 9. Eor when 306 men of the Eabii, who were
truly the brightest light of the Roman State, asked that the war against Veii
be assigned to them alone, their initial advances made this rashly under¬
taken adventure seem successful at first. But then they were led into an
ambush, surrounded by the enemy, and all slaughtered there save one who
was spared to take back news of the disaster, in order that their country
should have more misery in hearing the news of their losses than the losses
themselves caused her.®*

10 . It was not at Rome alone that such things happened. Various

who uses the incident to point to injustices in the early Roman state, City of God, 2.18 and 3.17.
Orosius’s comments about a body severed from its head draws on the parable of the belly used
by Menenius Agrippa to persuade the plebs to end their protest, see Livy, 2.32.8-12.

55 492 BC. Titus Gesonius is called Titus Geganius by Livy, 2.34.1.

56 This incident, which occurred in 480 BC, is recorded in full in Livy, 2.45-47.

57 Orosius’s comments about the gate are a paraphrase of Florus, 1.6.3.

58 The incident is recorded by Florus, 1.6.12, who con'ectly names the river as the Cremera
(the modem Fosso Valchetta) and the gate as the Porta Scelerata (i.e. the Porta Carmentalis).
Eutropius, 1.16, notes the disaster, but with no mention of the river or gate. For a full account
of the episode, see Livy, 2.49-50.

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provinces each blazed with their own fires so that what an outstanding poet
said of one city, I will say of all the world:

All parts resound with tumults, plaints, and fears

And grisly death in sundry shapes appears

1 . At the same time as Cyrus, the king of the Persians, whom I have
mentioned previously in order to keep to the correct chronology,®® was
marching in arms through Asia, Scythia, and all the Orient, Tarquinius
Superbus was bringing woe to the City either by enslaving it while king, or
by waging war on it as an enemy. 2 . Cyrus, as I have said, after defeating all
whom he had attacked, marched on the Assyrians and Babylon, the wealth¬
iest people and city of his day. But the river Gyndes,®' which is the second
greatest in size after the Euphrates, stayed his attack. 3. In a place where
dangerous whirlpools are formed along its treacherous river-bed, one of
the king’s horses, a beautiful white animal, confident that it could cross the
river, was caught up its currents, thrust down into its depths, and drowned.
4 . In his fury the king swore that he would be avenged on the river, telling it
that though now it had devoured a noble horse, he would leave it so shallow
that women would be able to cross it and hardly have to get their knees wet.
Nor were his deeds slower than his words. For the entire year he had all his
troops dig great ditches and channel the Gyndes into them, so reducing it
into 460 streams.®^ 5. Having turned his men into expert engineers by this
work, he then diverted the flow of the Euphrates, a far larger river which
ran through the middle of Babylon.®® 6. In this way he created a dry path
along streams which were fordable and at times even revealed the river-bed,
and captured a city which scarcely seemed possible to have been built by
human hands or to be brought low by human endeavour.®'^ 7. For this was
the Babylon that, according to many authorities, was founded by the giant

59 Virgil, Aeneid, 2.368-69.

60 1.19.6-11.

61 The modem Diyalah, a tributary of the Tigris in Iraq.

62 Orosius has drawn this tale from Seneca, De Ira, 3.21.

63 The minority manuscript reading. The majority of manuscripts read ‘Babylonia’;
however, Babylon makes more sense here.

64 The account of the capture of Babylon ultimately derives from Herodotus, 1.189-91.
Near Eastern tradition speaks of Babylon falling to Cyrus without a fight. For a discussion of
these sources, see Briant (2002) 40-44.

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Nebrot“ and refounded by Ninus or Semiramis.

8. It lay, conspicuous from all sides, on a flat plain. Its land was naturally
very fertile, and, like a fort, it was square in shape and walled on each side.“
When they are described, the solidity and size of these walls hardly sounds
credible, for they were 50 cubits thick and four times as high again. 9.
Its circumference was 480 stades. This enceinte was made of baked bricks
joined together with bitumen. Outside it ran a broad ditch like a river. A
100 bronze gates were built into the walls. 10 . The thickness of the walls
accommodated equally spaced turrets for defenders on either side of the
wall at the top of the rampart and in the central space there was room for
swift four-horse chariots to pass.®’ The houses within were of twice-four
stories and marvellous for their menacing height.

11 . The great Babylon, however, the first city to be founded after the
restoration of the human race,®* was at that time captured and overthrown
with hardly any delay.

12 . It was then that Croesus, the king of the Lydians, famed for his
wealth, came to help the Babylonians, but was defeated and fled back to his
own kingdom in panic. Cyrus, after he had come to Babylon as its enemy,
cast it down as its conqueror, and arranged its affairs as its king, turned to
make war on Lydia where he easily defeated its army which had been terri¬
fied by his previous success in battle. He captured Croesus himself and gave
his prisoner a present of both his life and his patrimony.®® 13 . It is not my
task here to expatiate on the unstable nature of changeable things: whatever
is built by the work of man’s hands, collapses and is consumed by old age^°

65 A common belief in the early church based on Genesis 10.10; see Augustine, City of
God, 16.3.

66 Orosius has in mind the quadriburgium of the late Roman army - a square fortification
with a square projecting tower at each comer; see Southern and Dixon (1996) 136-37, and
Johnson (1983) 253-55.

67 These figures ultimately derive from Herodotus, 1.178-79. The cubit was a variable
measure, but normally around r6”, leading to walls some 300 feet high and 75 feet thick.
The stade was 600 feet long, though the foot itself varied through the ancient world. Orosius’s
circumference is likely to have been 54.5 miles. The phrase ‘swift four-horse chariots’ is a
possible reminiscence of Virgil, Aeneid, 8.642. In reality, Babylon was some eight miles in
circumference and surrounded by a double wall. The breadth of these walls in toto was some
85 feet. For a full account, see Oates (1979) 144ff.

68 i.e. after Noah’s flood, see 1.3.

69 Orosius’s account of Croesus is a rhetorical embroidery of Justin, 1.7. In Justin’s account
Cyms only gives Croesus pai1 of his patrimony.

70 The quotation is taken from Cicero, Speech in defence of Marcellus (Pro Marcello),
4.11.

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as the capture of Babylon shows. Hers was the first and mightiest empire,
and so it was the first to come to an end in order that, as if in obedience to
some law of the succession of ages, her due inheritance could be handed
on to the next generation who would, in their turn, follow this same law of
succession.

14. In this way great Babylon and mighty Lydia fell on Cyrus’s first
attack - the most powerful limbs of the East falling along with its head^'
and collapsing through the outcome of one single battle. And the people of
our time are looking round in unreflecting distress and asking whether the
once-mighty foundations of the Roman state are now tottering not from the
blows of foreign foes, but rather from the weakness of its own old age.’^

773

1. Immediately afterwards Cyrus waged war on the Scythians. Although
Queen Thamyris^'* who at that time ruled this race could have stopped him
crossing the river Araxes, she allowed him to cross^^ both because of her
own confidence and because this gave her a chance to trap her enemy as he
would have the river to his rear. 2. Cyrus therefore advanced into Scythia
and pitched his camp far from where he had crossed the river. Afterwards,
he cunningly abandoned it, though it had been decked out with food and
wine, to give the impression that he had fled in terror. When the queen heard
of this, she sent her young son with a third of her army to pursue Cyrus.
3. Soon, after the barbarians had been overcome by drink, just as if they
had been invited to a feast, Cyrus returned and slew them all, including the
young boy.

4. After losing her army and son, Thamyris made ready to assuage her
sorrows as a mother and as a queen with the blood of her enemy rather
than with her own tears. She pretended that she had lost confidence and
was despondent because of the disaster, and, by slowly retreating, drew

71 i.e. Babylon.

72 This statement contrasts with Orosius’s normal optimism about the future of Christian
Rome and appears to be a reversion to pagan theories of cyclical history. There is perhaps
here an echo of Tacitus’s pessimism when discussing the internal wars of German tribes; see
Germania, 33.

73 In this chapter Orosius closely follows Justin, 1.8.

74 See Justin, 1.8.2. Herodotus, 1.205, calls her Tomyris.

75 Taken verbatim from Justin, 1.8.2. The Araxes is the modem Syr Darya which rises in
the Tien Shan mountains of Kyrgystan and flows west through southern Kazakhstan to the
Aral Sea.

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her arrogant foe into an ambush. 5. Having arranged this in the mountains,
she annihilated 200,000 Persians there along with their king - not one
survived to report this great disaster, which is the most amazing part of
what happened?^ 6. The queen ordered that Cyrus’s head be struck off and
thrown into a wine skin filled with human blood, cursing it as a man would
curse. "Drink your fill’, she said, "of the blood for which you thirsted and
with which could not sate yourself for 30 years.’’’

1. 245 years after the foundation of the City, when Cyrus had been killed in
Scythia, after an interval of time, the lot fell on Darius to take possession of
his kingdom.’® 2. Between the reigns of these two came that of Cambyses,
the son of Cyrus. He conquered Egypt and, having a loathing for every
aspect of Egyptian religion, put an end to their rites and temples.” 3. After
him, the Magi dared to seize the kingdom in the name of a king whom they
had killed.®® They were, however, soon found out and done away with. 4.
Darius, one of those who had put an end to the audacity of the Magi by the
sword, was made king with the approval of all.

After he had re-conquered Assyria and Babylon, which had rebelled
against the empire of the Persians, he made war on Antyrus, the king of
the Scythians.®' The prime cause of this war was that he had sought, but
not obtained, Antyrus’s daughter in marriage,®’ 5. so one can see the great
necessity that made 700,000 men be exposed to the threat of death to satisfy
the lusts of one man. After making an incredible number of preparations.

76 Taken virtually verbatim from Justin, 1.8.11-12.

77 Justin has Thamyris curse Cyrus’s head ‘upbraiding him cruelly’ rather than ‘as a man
would curse’. However, Orosius has taken the queen’s spoken words, save for the addition of
‘for 30 years’, verbatim from Justin, 1.8.13.

78 Orosius’s chronology is awry here. According Jerome, the temple in Jerusalem was
restored in A Abr. 1468 and Daiius was already on the throne. This year is equivalent to 205
AUC.

79 The story of Cambyses is taken from Justin, 1.9. Orosius suppresses Justin’s account
of how this sacrilege, as he styles it, led to Cambyses’ death and how a Persian army failed to
destroy the temple of Amon at Siwah as it was driven away from the site by sand-storms. For
a discussion of Cambyses’ campaigns in Egypt, see Briant (2002) 50-61.

80 The so-called pseudo-Smerdis, see Justin, 1.9.

81 Orosius’s account of the rise of Darius is a highly abbreviated version of Justin, 1.9-10.

82 The Scythian king is called Jancyrus by Justin, 2.5.8. The account of the Scythian
expedition follows Justin’s version closely.

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Darius entered Scythia with 700,000 men. His enemy did not give him the
chance to fight a set-piece battle, but whittled his troops away with sudden
sorties on their flanks. 6. Fearing that he would not be able to withdraw if
the bridge over the Danube was destroyed, Darius fled in panic having lost
80,000 warriors, although he did not count their deaths among his losses
and did not feel the loss of a number of men which hardly anyone would
have dared to imagine to have in their army in the first place. 7. After this,
he marched on and subjugated Asia and Macedonia,*^ and, after fighting a
naval battle, also conquered the lonians.*'*

He then turned his arms to attack the Athenians because they had sent
help against him to the lonians.*^ 8. When the Athenians learnt that Darius
was coming, although they sought help from the Lacedaemonians, they
discovered that the Persians were delayed by a four-day religious obser¬
vance.*'’ Taking hope from this chance event, they marshalled 10,000 citizens
and 1,000 Plataean allies, and fell on the 600,000 troops of the enemy on
the plains of Marathon.*^ 9. Their general at the time was Miltiades, who
relied more on speed than courage and, by making a swift charge, managed
to come to grips with the enemy before his attack could be driven off by
their arrows. 10. There was a great difference in the way they fought in that
battle: one group of men came ready to kill; the others seemed like cattle
brought to the slaughter.** 11. That day 200,000 Persians died on the Plains
of Marathon.*^ 12. This was a loss that Darius did feel and, after being
routed in defeat, he seized some ships and fled back to Persia.

13. He then renewed the war and plotted vengeance against his victors.
He died in the middle of his preparations in the 74* Olympiad, that is 275

83 A reference to Mardonius’s expedition of 492 BC.

84 The Battle of Lade, 494 BC.

85 Orosius’s account of Darius’s Scythian expedition, including the numbers of those
involved and those lost, and his subsequent actions follows Justin, 2.5.9—13, closely. He has
omitted Justin’s long anthropological excursus on the Scythians.

86 Having passed over Justin, 2.6-8, this passage follows Justin, 2.9.8ff. Orosius has
misread Justin, 2.9.9, where Justin correctly states that it was the Spartans, not the Persians,
who were holding a religious festival.

87 490 BC.

88 Orosius’s account of the battle, including the numbers involved, draws heavily on Justin,
2.9.9-12. Justin, however, has Militiades ‘relying more on his speed than his allies’. Orosius
embroiders Justin’s observation at 2.9.12 that ‘you would think they were men on one side and
cattle on the other', but because he has changed Justin’s ‘allies’ to ‘courage’ his use of this
observation is somewhat inept.

89 Justin, 2.9.20, says that 200,000 Persians died at Marathon and in the subsequent
sea-battle. For a discussion of Marathon from a Persian perspective, see Briant (2002) 160-61.

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years after the foundation of the City, in the same year as the virgin Popilia
was buried alive at Rome for sexual misdemeanours.

g9i

1 . Xerxes succeeded his father Darius on the throne and for five years made
preparations for the war against the Greeks that had been begun by his
father. The Lacedaemonian Demaratus, who happened to be in exile at the
court of Xerxes at that time, treacherously told his people about this on
tablets that he first wrote on and then covered with wax.®^ 2 . Xerxes is said
to have had 700,000 armed men from his kingdom, 300,000 from his allies,
1,200 warships, and 3,000 transport vessels, so it was justly recorded that
the rivers hardly had enough water to drink for such an army of unprec¬
edented size and such a massive fleet, and that there was hardly enough land
for his army’s advance or sea for his fleet’s course.

3. Against this column, whose size would be unthinkable in our day and
whose numbers are more difficult to count now than they were to defeat
then, stood Leonidas, the king of the Spartans, with 4,000 men in the Pass
of Thermopylae.^^ 4 . Xerxes, contemptuous of the small numbers of those
facing him, ordered the battle to begin and that it be fought at close quarters.
Those whose kin and fellow-soldiers had fallen on the Plains of Marathon
were the first to enter the fray and suffer disaster. 5. Then came a larger, but
less enthusiastic, rabble who, since they were neither free to charge forward,
nor equipped for fighting, nor able to flee, were simply marched up to be
slaughtered.^'* Eor three whole days there was what was not a battle between
two peoples, but simply the butchery of one of them.

90 Jerome also links the year of Darius’s death with that of Popilia’s execution, but these
are placed in the 73"^ Olympiad in A AbrA53'[ = 268 AUC. Orosius’s comments on Popilia
closely follow those of Jerome.

91 This chapter omits Justin’s account of Xerxes’ struggle for the succession to the Persian
throne and then draws heavily, albeit in a much abbreviated form, on Justin, beginning at
2.10.12 and continuing to 2.11.18. There is much rhetorical embroidery at the end of the
chapter and Orosius has suppressed the Delphic Oracle’s prophecy that either a Spartan king
or the city of Sparta would perish; see Justin, 2.11.8.

92 Demaratus had been deposed as king of Sparta by Cleomenes in 491 BC and fled to
Persia. Orosius is much harsher on him than Justin, 2.10.13, who comments ‘he was a better
friend to his country after his exile’.

93 480 BC.

94 Orosius has embroidered Justin, 2.11.3, which merely notes ‘Greater slaughter ensued
with the following, useless rabble’.

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6. On the fourth day, after Leonidas saw that the enemy had surrounded
him on all sides, he urged his allies to withdraw from the battle, escape up
into the mountains,^® and save themselves for better times,^® but said that he
and the Spartans would have a different fate, for they owed more to their
country than to life.

7. When he had dismissed his allies, he warned the Spartans that they
could hope for great glory, but that they had no chance of life; that they
should not wait for the enemy or daybreak, but break into the enemy’s
camp by night, exchange blows with him, and throw his columns into
confusion; and that they could have no more honourable death than as
victors in their enemy’s camp. 8. Persuaded therefore to choose death, they
armed themselves to avenge their coming deaths as men who would both
bring about their own demise and take revenge for it. Wondrous as it is to
relate, 600 men burst into the camp of 600,000.^’ 9 . The whole camp was
in uproar, the Persians helping the Spartans by killing one another. The
Spartans sought the king, and, on not finding him, slew and laid low every¬
thing they found. Ranging through the whole camp, they were scarcely able
to pursue the scattered men amid the piles of corpses and would without
a doubt have been triumphant, had they not chosen to die. 10 . The battle
dragged on from nightfall into the latter part of the following day. Finally,
worn down by their triumph, after each of them with failing, tired limbs had
taken his fill of vengeance for his own death, weary, they fell down and died
among the baggage of the dead and battlefield which was oozing wifh thick,
half-congealed blood.

95 Orosius appears to have misread Justin, 2.11.5, who states that ‘Leonidas was told that
the heights were occupied by 20,000 of the enemy’.

96 Orosius changes the speech he found in Justin at this point. At Justin, 2.9.5, Leonidas
urges his allies to save themselves for ‘better times for their country’; however, Orosius
suppresses ‘for their country’ in order to make an ideological point later on in his nan'ative.

97 Justin, 2.11.15, has 500,000 Persians. Orosius has presumably increased the number to
make a more pleasing contrast with the 600 Spartans.

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1098

1 . Xerxes twice defeated on land, now prepared to fight a naval battle.^^
But the Athenians’ commander, Themistocles, on learning that the lonians,
because of whom the Persians were now attacking Athens as she had given
support to the lonians in the previous war, had marshalled their fieet in
support of Xerxes, decided to draw them onto his side and away from that
of the enemy. 2. Because he had no chance of talking to them, he ordered
that signs be made and fixed to the rocks in the places to which the lonians
seemed likely to come in their ships. By means of these signs, he rightly
rebuked them on the grounds that they had once been the Athenians’ allies
and partners in peril, but had now unjustly deserted them. By urging them
to remember the solemn vows of their old alliance, he won them over and,
above all, told them that when the conflict began, they should stay their oars
as if they were retreating and take themselves out of the battle.

3. The king kept part of his fieet with him and stayed on the shore to
watch the battle. On the other hand, Artemidora,'®' the queen of Halicar¬
nassus, who had come to support Xerxes, plunged so fiercely among the
leaders of the front ranks of the battle that it seemed as if their roles had
been reversed, for a feminine caution was seen in the man and a masculine
daring in the woman.

4. While the fight was in the balance, the lonians followed Themis¬
tocles’ advice and gradually began to withdraw from the battle. Their defec¬
tion persuaded the Persians, who were already looking round for an excuse
for flight, to flee openly. 5. In the panic many ships were sunk or captured,
and more, fearing the wrath of their king as much as the cruelty of the foe,
slunk away to their homes.

6. Mardonius came to the king, who was troubled by so many setbacks,
and persuaded him that as king he ought to return to his kingdom before
news of the reverse stirred up revolution at home. 7. He said that if the
remnants of the army were entrusted to him, he would exact retribution

98 This chapter draws heavily, in abbreviated form on Justin, 2.11.19-2.13.12. Orosius
suppresses Justin’s comment, 2.11.8-9, that Xerxes sent 4,000 men to sack Delphi before the
battle of Salamis and so was waging war not just against the Greeks, but also against the gods.
He also declines to mention the famous Delphic oracle about the ‘wooden walls’ of Athens;
see Justin, 2.11.13-14.

99 The Battle of Salamis, 480 BC.

100 An abbreviated third-person rendering of a first-person speech in Justin, 2.12.3-7.

101 In fact, the queen’s name was Artemisia. See Justin, 2.12.23, and Herodotus, 8.87.

102 This rhetorical flourish has been taken from Justin, 2.11.24.

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from the foe and free the royal house from shame, or, if the reverses of
war continued, he would fall before the foe, but that this would not involve
disgrace for the king. 8. Mardonius’s advice was approved and the army
handed over to him.

The king set off with a few men to Abydus'®^ where he had built a bridge
as if he had conquered the sea, but he found that the bridge had been destroyed
by the winter storms, and so crossed over panic-stricken in a small fishing
boat. 9 . It was right that mankind should have wondered and grieved at the
way things change, using this enormous reversal of fortune as their guide.
For a man beneath whom previously the sea itself had hidden itself and,
shackled by a bridge, borne its yoke of captivity, was now himself content
to lie hidden in a little boat. 10 . The man who now lacked the demeaning
help of even a solitary underling was that same man before whose power
nature itself had previously yielded when he ordered mountains cut through,
valleys filled in, and rivers drunk dry.'”'*

11 . His foot soldiers too, who had been placed under the command of
his generals, were wasting away under the effects of hard work, famine,
and fear. Disease spread to epidemic proportions among them and the
stench from the dying was so great that the roads were full of corpses, and
ill-omened birds and accursed animals followed the dying army, lured by
the temptation of finding food.

11105

1 . Mardonius to whom Xerxes had entrusted the rest of the army was at first
puffed up by a brief moment of success, but soon cast down into dire straits.

2. He stormed the Greek town of Olynthus and advanced on the Athenians,
offering them various hopeful approaches to make peace. When, however,
he saw their liberty was not for the taking, he burnt down part of their
town and took his entire army off into Boeotia. 3. 100,000 Greeks pursued
him thither, gave battle without delay and, after destroying his army and
leaving him stripped of everything like a survivor of a shipwreck, compelled
Mardonius to flee with a few men.'®'’ They captured his camp which was full
of the king’s treasure. This was no a small factor in undoing their previous

103 The modern Canakkale on the eastern side of the Hellespont.

104 This moralising is Justin’s, 2.13.10.

105 This chapter until section 6 draws heavily on Justin, 2.14.

106 The Battle of Plataea, 479 BC.

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work for after this booty was divided up, Persian gold proved the worst
cormptor of Greek virtue.

4 . Then a final disaster crowned these wretched undertakings, for it
happened that on the same day that Mardonius’s army was destroyed, part
of the Persian army was fighting a sea battle under Mount Mycale.'”^ 5. A
sudden rumour came to the ears of the fleets on both sides that Mardonius’s
troops had been wiped out and that the Greeks had triumphed. O, what a
wondrous dispensation of Divine Justice that the result of a battle that had
begun in Boeotia when the sun was in the east should become known in
Asia on the same day at midday when so great a stretch of land and sea
lies between them!'®* 6. The rumour was consistent with fact, because it
rendered the Persians, after they heard of the disaster that had befallen their
allies and were gripped first by sorrow and then despair, neither fit to fight
nor able to flee; while the enemy, now made all the more resolute, fell with
complete success on their terrified and broken foe.

7. After he had waged an unsuccessful war in Greece, Xerxes became
a laughing-stock to his people. He was trapped and killed in his palace by
the prefect Artabanus.'®®

8. O, what times most worthy to remember with nostalgia! What days
of peaceful serenity they set before us to look back on from our times of
darkness! Days when in the blink of an eye, three wars waged by three
neighbouring kings snatched 9,000,000 men from the heart of a single
kingdom, not to mention the misfortunes of Greece, where the number of
deaths exceeded even this figure: a number which even today leaves us
numb.

9 . Leonidas, the most famous of the Lacedaemonians, gave this famous
encouragement to his 600 men in the war against Xerxes, a war which proved
both his and his enemies’ last: ‘Take your breakfast as if you are going to
dine in the underworld’, but he mercifully urged his allies, whom he ordered
to leave the battle, to save themselves for better times. 10 . Behold, that
while he promised better times in the future, men today assert that the past
was better than the present, so what can one conclude when both groups
detest their own times, except that all ages are good, but never seem so, or
rather that none are better in all respects.

107 The modem Dilek Dagi, located on the Turkish coast opposite the island of Samos.

108 Justin, 2.14.9, attributes the spread of this news merely to the speed at which mmour
travels.

109 This section draws on Justin, 3.1.1-2. For a more favourable assessment of Xerxes,
see Briant (2002) 567-68.

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1 . 1 shall now return to Rome and to that time from which I digressed. It is
not any break in Rome’s suffering that forces me to look at other peoples,
but, as these evils bubble up everywhere and collect themselves together
through their actions, so they must be discussed together, given that our task
is to collate the history of the world and not to pounce upon the troubles of
one part of that history. 2. At Rome then, 290 years after the foundation of
the City, a severe plague put an end to war for a while. Plagues always broke
the short truces that Rome made, or compelled her to make such truces. This
plague raged fiercely throughout the entire city, so the sky which had been
seen burning on fire was rightly seen as an omen of its coming, given that
the head of the world was ablaze with such a great flame of disease."® 3. In
that year the plague carried off both the consuls, Aebutius and Servilius, and
took the lives of most of Rome’s soldiers. Its foul decay killed many nobles
and even more of the plebs, 4 . though the people had already been ravaged
by an outbreak of the plague four years previously.'"

5. The following year some exiled citizens and fugitive slaves led by
Herbonius, a Sabine, attacked and burnt the Capitol 6. where the luniores"^
bravely held out under their general, the consul Valerius. However, the
deciding moment of the conflict was so fierce and furious that the consul
Valerius was himself killed there and soiled with his death a sordid victory
over slaves."^

7. There followed a year in which an army was defeated and a consul
besieged. For the Aequi and Volsci met and defeated the consul Minucius
in battle and then, after he had fled to Algidus,"'* besieged him with hunger
and the sword. These events would have turned out badly, had not Quintius
Cincinnatus, the famous dictator, defeated the enemy and lifted this close

110 Livy, 3.5.14. Orosius is happy to accept portents of natural disasters. For him these are
true signs and caused by God, but often misinterpreted by pagans.

111 Orosius is one year out in his reckoning as this plague occurred in 291 At/C/463 BC;
see Livy, 3.6. The previous plague occurred in 288 At/C/466 BC.

112 The centuries of troops aged between 17 and 46. The title, though with a different
meaning, was also in common use in the later Roman ai'my of Orosius’s own day.

113 Orosius’s chronology is again awry: these events date to 294 At/C/460 BC when R
Valerius Poplicola was consul. A full account is found at Livy, 3.15.5-3.18.9, where the slaves’
leader is called Herdonius. Again, Orosius’s aristocratic tone is noticeable here. The death of
Valerius also occurs in a list of disasters found in Augustine, City of God, 3.17, which is used
to demonstrate the impotence of Rome’s pagan gods.

114 L. Minucius Esquilinus Augurinus, suffect consul in 458 BC. Algidus is the modern
Monte Campatri on the edge of the Alban Hills.

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siege. 8. Cincinnatus was found in the countryside and summoned from
his plough to rule. He accepted this honour, marshalled the army, and soon
emerged victorious. He made the Aequi pass under the oxen’s yoke and was
the first to drive his yoked foes before him, treating his victory as if it was
his plough’s handle."^

1 . In the following year, which preceded the 300“' since the foundation of
the City, while the ambassadors who had been sent to Athens to bring back
the laws of Solon were still away, famine and plague weakened Roman
arms.

2. In the 300'“ year since the foundation of the City - that is in the 95'“
Olympiad - the power of the consuls was given to ten men in order to estab¬
lish the laws of Attica.'"’ This brought great harm to the Republic, 3. for the
leader of the ten, Appius Claudius, extended the duration of his own power"^
after the others laid theirs down. They immediately formed a conspiracy so
that they might all indulge in all their individual lusts, ignoring the custom
whereby while the emblems of command were given to one magistrate, its
power was common to them all."® 4 . And so, among the other things that
they had all usurped with sheer arrogance, suddenly each one of them began
to parade with t'^eXve, fasces and the rest of a commander’s insignia. 5. After
this wicked new order of things had been established, an army of tyrants
appeared which ignored the reverence due to the consuls."'’ They added
two tables of laws to the old ten tables and carried out many acts with utter
arrogance, including parading with the same insignia as ever on the day

115 The story of Cincinnatus is found in Floms, 1.5.11-15; Eutropius, 1.17; and more
fully in Livy, 3.25-28. He was dictator in 296 At/C/458 BC. Livy makes no claim that this was
when the custom of forcing enemies under the yoke was first instituted, but does describe the
practice here. Augustine, City of God, 5.18, regards Cincinnatus as an exemplary role model.

116 Conventionally 451 BC, i.e. 303 AUC. Eutropius, 1.18, Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr
1566, and Livy, 3.33.1, date the Decemvirate to 302 AUC. The story of the decemvirate is
found in Livy, 3.33-50. Orosius’s synchronisation with the Olympiads is incorrect: the decem¬
virs date to the end of the 8P* Olympiad. For a discussion of the decemvirate, see Cornell
(1995)272-76.

117 Latin, imperium.

118 The custom concerned was the practice of the previous decemvirs that only one of them
should parade with the fasces, Livy, 3.36.3. The ‘others’ are members of the so-called Second
Decemvirate and conspired with Appius Claudius. Orosius appears confused here.

119 This is the so-called Second Decemvirate, conventionally 450 BC.

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when it is customary to lay down one’s magistracy.'^®

6. It was the lust of Appius Claudius that caused most hatred. In order
to rape the maiden Virginia, he first accused her of being a slave. Because
of this Virginius, her father, driven by his sorrow at her loss of liberty and
by his shame at her disgrace, killed his daughter, who had already been
enslaved, in an act of pious murder before the gaze of the people. 7. The
people were moved by this horrible, but necessary, deed, and warned by it
that their liberty was in danger, occupied the Aventine Hill in arms. Nor did
they cease to guard their liberty with their arms until the conspiracy had
dissolved itself and the conspirators laid down their powers.

8. In the lOS'® and 105“' Olympiads, there were severe and frequent
earthquakes in Italy for almost an entire year with the result that Rome
grew weary of messages reporting the countless tremors and the continual
destruction of farms and towns. 9. Then there came a long, roasting drought
that put an end to any hope of the land yielding crops either in that or the
following year.'^' 10 . At the same time, Rome’s enemies, the Fidenates,
menaced the citadel of Rome, a threat made all the more terrible as they had
a huge band of allies with them. But Aemilius, the third dictator, dispelled
and cured this great mass of evil by capturing Fidenae itself, albeit with
difficulty.

11 . So great was the strife and these troubles and dissensions that the
wars which poured down on them from abroad erased the memories of
internal discord, and, after the losses of war, the following periods of uneasy
truce were ruined by the unending outbreaks of plagues which blazed forth
from both earth and sky.'^®

120 i.e. they refused to lay down office; see Livy, 3.38.1.

121 These two Olympiad dates are 386-389 AUC and 394—397 AUC and must be an error.
The mention of farms derives from Livy, 4.21.5, and dates to 318 Af/C/436 BC. The later
drought may be a reference to Livy, 4.30.7—11, but it seems odd that Orosius has not taken the
chance to attack the religious practices mentioned there.

122 Reading tertius with Arnaud-Lindet and our ancient manuscripts. Zangemeister
corrects the reading to tertium, ‘for the third time'. In terms of historical facts, Zangemeister
is correct: Mamilius Aemilius Mamercinus had been dictator twice before (in 437 and 434
BC) and held the office for the third time in 328 At/C/426 BC. However, it seems that Orosius
is guilty of a hasty reading of Livy, 4.32, where Mamilius is described as dictatorem tertium,
and has failed to see that Livy is here using tertium adverbially. Fidenae is the modern Castel
Giubileo.

123 This material is probably drawn from Livy, 4.30.8, but the pagan content concerning
rituals has been suppressed.

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14124

1 . Sicily was at first the land of the Cyclopes and after that has ever been
the nurse of tyrants. Often she has been the prisoner of slaves.The first
of these groups nourished themselves on human flesh, the second on human
torture, and the last on human slaughter. The exception to these times was
when the island was considered as booty or a prize in foreign wars. 2. To
put the matter as briefly as possible, the island has known no respite from
troubles, save in the present day. Indeed, this is clearly shown by her diverse
fortunes - previously, she alone of all nations continually suffered from
either internal or external troubles, whereas now she alone never suffers
them. 3. Etna itself gives an example that allows me to be silent about the
continual calamities Sicily used to suffer and the peace that she now enjoys.
Eor while in the past the volcano often used to erupt and destroy both cities
and fields, now it merely lies there smoking; a harmless witness which
serves to make the stories of the past credible. 4 . Now I shall pass over the
time of the tyrants and how one after another threw down his predecessor
and then soon took his place, and begin in the middle of the period, namely
in 335'*' year after the foundation of the City, when the Regini who live near
Sicily were suffering from civil strife which had divided their state into
two factions.*^** One faction summoned veterans from the Sicilian town of
Himera*^’ to their aid. 5. Soon after these veterans had driven out of the city
those against whom they had been begged to hght, they slaughtered those
whom they had come to help and seized the city along with the women and
children of their ‘allies’, thus daring to do a deed unequalled by any tyrant.
6. It would have been better for the Regini to endure anything rather than of
their own freewill to have invited in those to whom, after they themselves
had been driven into exile, they left their country, wives, children, and
household gods as booty.

7. The people of Gatina, when they were suffering from the bitter hostility
of the Syracusans, asked for help from the Athenians.*^® The Athenians,

124 This chapter draws very closely on Justin, 4.2-5.

125 A reference to the two major slave uprisings on the island in 135-132 BC and 104-100
BC. As ever, Orosius shows no sympathy for slaves or hostility to slavery.

126 This date is Orosius’s own. The Regini are the inhabitants of Rhegium, the modern
Reggio di Calabria.

127 Located near the modern town of Termini Imerese.

128 The modern Catania. Orosius has copied an error from Justin, 4.3. The embassy
to Athens came from Leontini with whom the Athenians had had a full militaiy alliance, a
symmachia, since the 450s BC, see Thucydides, 3.86. Catania was one of Leontini’s allies.

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looking more to their interests than those of their allies, marshalled a fleet
and despatched it to Sicily, both with the intention of extending their empire
there and also because they feared that the recently created Syracusan fleet
would come to the aid of the Lacedaemonians. 8. Since the Athenians who
had been despatched killed their enemies and so enjoyed initial success,
Athens sent more supplies and a stronger army under the leadership of
Laches and Chariades to Sicily. 9 . But the people of Catina were wearied
by the war and struck a treaty with the Syracusans, spuming Athens’ aid.'^°
10 . Afterwards, however, when the Syracusans, who were planning to
conquer them, broke the terms of this peace treaty, they once more sent
ambassadors to Athens. These ambassadors had unkempt hair and beards
and were dressed in mourning so that they could beg for pity and help both
through their words and by their appearance.'^'

11 . A great fleet was marshalled and put under the command of Nicias
and Lamachus, and so the Athenians returned to Sicily in such force that
even those who had asked for them to come were afraid of what they had
requested. 12 . Straightaway, the Athenians fought two successful land
battles, drove the enemy back into their city, and, bringing up their fleet,
surrounded them by land and sea. 13 . But the Syracusans, exhausted and
with their affairs in ruins, sought help from the Lacedaemonians. They soon
sent Gylippus - he came alone, but was worth an entire garrison. On arriving
and hearing that the war was already going badly, he gathered allied troops,
some from Greece, some from Sicily, and occupied positions from which he
could wage war. 14 . He was defeated in two battles, but was unmoved, and
in the third encounter killed Lamachus, put his enemies to flight, and lifted
the siege for his allies.

15 . After the Athenians had been defeated on land, they began to try
their luck at sea and prepared to fight a naval battle. On learning of this,
Gylippus summoned the fleet that had been marshalled by the Lacedaemo¬
nians, 16 . and the Athenians too despatched Demosthenes and Eurymedon
with reinforcements to take the place of their lost general. The Pelopon-

129 In427BC.

130 The Treaty of Gela, 424 BC.

131 The successful embassy was in fact from Segesta in 416 BC, Orosius has followed an
error in Jmstin, 4.4.1-3.

132 Orosius suppresses mention of the third Athenian general, Alcibiades, found at Justin,
4.4.3. The Sicilian expedition took place in 415 BC.

133 Gylippus arrived in Sicily in 413 BC. Justin, 4.4.9, mistakenly places Lamachus’s
death after his arrival and again Orosius has followed Justin’s error.

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nesians also sent a large number of reinforcements to the Syracusans in
accordance with a decree approved by many cities. 17 . So in this way, under
the pretext of fighting for their allies, they pursued their own quarrels abroad
with both sides fighting there at full strength, as if it had been decreed that
their struggle be transferred from Greece to Sicily.

18 . The Athenians were defeated in the first encounter and lost their
camp, and with it all their money, both that belonging to the state and that of
private individuals, as well as all the equipment necessary for a long expedi¬
tion. 19 . After their resources had been shattered and they were reduced to
dire straits, Demosthenes urged that they should return home and withdraw
from Sicily, while, albeit they seemed in great trouble, everything was not
altogether lost. 20 . But Nicias, who had become all the more desperate from
shame at having done everything badly from the beginning, argued that
they should stay. 21 . They renewed the naval war and soon, because of their
ignorance of these waters, were drawn into the narrows of the Syracusan Sea
where they were surrounded in an enemy ambush. Eurylochus was the first
of their generals to die and eleven ships were set on fire.'^"* Demosthenes and
Nicias then abandoned the fleet, thinking that they could flee more safely by
land. 22 . Gylippus first fell upon the 130 ships that the Athenians had left
and then set off to pursue the fugitives themselves, capturing and killing the
vast majority of them. Demosthenes spurned the disgrace of enslavement by
taking his own life, but Nicias added the disgrace of capture to his unworthy
and shameful life.*^^

15*36

1 . The Athenians, after being mauled by the Lacedaemonians in Sicily for
two years, though not without inflicting losses on them, were then entangled
in other ills at home. Eor Alcibiades who had once been declared a general
in the war against Syracuse, but soon afterwards had been detained for trial
on some trumped-up charge, voluntarily took himself off to Lacedaemon

134 Eurylochus is either a scribe’s error for Eurymedon who is mentioned earlier in the
chapter, or Orosius has forgotten himself. Justin, 4.5.7, says 30 ships were burnt.

135 Athens’s defeat took place in 413 BC. The final maxim is taken from Justin, 4.5.20. It is
surprising that Orosius as a Christian does not disapprove of Demosthenes’ suicide. Augustine
devotes a long section of the first book of his City of God (chapters 17-24), which Orosius
would have known, to suicide and concludes that suicide to avoid dishonour is not acceptable.

136 The material in this chapter, including its sententiae, draws heavily on Justin, 5.1-2.

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into exile.'” 2. Here he urged the Spartans to renew the war against the
Athenians while they were in difficulties, and crush them rather than allow
them a breathing space. 3. All Greece joined in this project, as if, taking
heed of the common good, they had joined forces to put out a fire that
threatened them all.

4. Now Darius, the king of the Persians,'^® remembering his father’s and
grandfather’s hatred of this city, made a treaty with the Lacedaemonians
through the agency of the prefect'^® of Lydia, Tissaphernes, and promised
them that he would pay for the war and give them troops. 5. Wondrous to
relate, the resources of the Athenians were so great at this time that when
they, that is one city, were attacked by the forces of Greece, Asia, and all
the Orient, they gave frequent battle, never yielded, and seem to have been
worn out rather than defeated.

6. At first, Alcibiades forced all the Athenians’ allies to defect to the
Lacedaemonians, but when the Lacedaemonians too became envious of him
and sought to ensnare him, he fled and went off to Tissaphernes in Media.

7. Because of his adaptable character and tactful eloquence, he became a
firm friend of the prefect. He persuaded him not to help the Lacedaemonians
so generously, saying that he ought rather to be a judge and spectator of the
contest and keep the might of Lydia intact to use against whomever won. 8.
Tissaphernes therefore ordered that part of his fleet along with some troops
be sent to Lacedaemon so that they should not have such an abundance of aid
that they could fight entirely free from danger, but neither be left completely
devoid of help and so give up the conflict which they had begun.'""

16'«

1. Although the Athenians had long suffered from internal discord, when
danger loomed, the people willingly transferred supreme power to the
Senate. For discord is nourished by idleness, but when necessity presses.

137 The incident of the mutilation of the Herms, 415 BC. Oddly, Orosius makes no mention
of Alcibiades as a general at 2.14.11 above.

138 Darius II, 424^04 BC.

139 i.e. the satrap. Orosius is presumably ignorant of this Persian title.

140 This detail is not in Justin and presumably is just a reference to the Persian Empire as
a whole as Tissaphernes would have been resident in his Satrapy, Lydia, not in Media. Alcibi¬
ades fled here in 412 BC.

141 For an account of Persian relations with the Greek states in this period, see Briant
(2002) 591-96.

142 The material in this chapter draws heavily on Justin, 5.3.1-5.8.3.

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private quarrels and hatreds are put aside for the common good.'"^^ 2. Now
this policy would have been disastrous for the Athenians, given the innate
pride and tyrannical lusts of their race, but finally Alcibiades was recalled
from exile with his army and made commander of the fleet.3. When this
became known, the leading citizens'"^^ at first tried to betray their city to the
Spartans, then, after their plot came to nothing, they went into voluntary
exile and Alcibiades, after freeing his country, sailed with the fleet against
the enemy. 4 . They came to battle and the Athenians won the victory. The
greater part of the Spartan army was killed, almost all their generals were
cut down, and 80 ships were captured, quite apart from those that had been
fired or sunk in the fight.

5. The war passed to the land again and proved equally unlucky for
the Spartans, and so with their affairs in ruins the Lacedaemonians sought
peace, but were unable to obtain it. 6. Moreover, their Syracusan garrisons
were summoned back to the island on hearing that a war with Carthage
had broken out in Sicily.So Alcibiades ranged through all Asia with
his victorious fleet, plundering and laying low everything with war, fire,
and slaughter, and captured or retook the vast majority of the cities that
had defected from the Athenian alliance. 7. Having made a great name for
himself, he entered Athens in triumph to the admiration and joy of all.''** 8.
Soon afterwards, he strengthened his forces, increased the size of the army
and navy, and set out for Asia once again.

At this point, the Lacedaemonians made Lysander the commander of
their fleet and put him in charge of the war.*'^® 9. Darius’s brother, Cyrus,
was now put in charge of Ionia and Lydia in Tissaphernes’ place and
reinforced the Spartans with a great number of supplies and troops. Lysander
crushed Alcibiades’ army in a sudden attack while it was intent on plunder

143 This sententia is Orosius’s own. Justin, 5.3.4, is a little more equivocal. This is unsur¬
prising as the ‘Senate’ is the oligarchic Council of 400 instituted in 411 BC, a group normally
regarded in a highly negative light.

144 This was done by the Athenian fleet stationed on Samos who were opponents of
the 400. Orosius here manages to square the circle of approving of the motives that led to
the creation of the 400, while also criticising the behaviour of that body by attacking the
Athenians’ temperament.

145 i.e. the Four Hundred.

146 The Battle of Cyzicus, 410 BC.

147 409 BC.

148 In407BC.

149 In late 408 or early 407 BC.

150 Cyrus was in fact Darius II’s son, as is correctly noted by Justin, 5.5.1.

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101

and therefore dispersed, with its men wandering far and wide.'®' In this way,
without having to offer battle, he defeated and slaughtered them as they fled.
10. This was a great disaster for the Athenians and a far more severe blow
than that they themselves had inflicted on the Spartans a short time before.

On hearing of their defeat, the Athenians decided that Alcibiades had
been minded to avenge the old grievance of his exile through the crime
of treachery, 11. and so they appointed Conon in his place, giving him
command over what was left of their troops and the prosecution of the
war. 12. Conon wished to increase the numbers of his depleted forces and
enlisted an army by enrolling old men and boys. But this kind of force
brought no respite from war, for a war is usually determined by the strength
of an army, not its numbers. 13. Consequently this unwarlike band was at
once either captured or killed, and so great were the piles of the slain in that
battle that it seemed that it was not merely the kingdom of the Athenians
that had been wiped out, but the very name Athenian itself.'®^ 14. In their
desperate plight the Athenians decided to entrust their city to foreigners'®®
and so they, who shortly before had lorded it over all Asia, now looked to
defend their walls and liberty with these dregs of an army. Although they
themselves took the view that this group, even when behind the walls, was
not strong enough to mount a defence, they nevertheless prepared to make
trial of their enemies in a naval battle once more.

15. For frenzy devoid of reason considers grief to be strength and
overconfidence promises it can deliver what anger broods upon.

16. When all of this army had been captured or killed, there was nothing
left that the remnants could do.'®'' Conon was the only general who had
survived the war and the people’s wrath and he, fearing the vengeance of
his fellow citizens, took himself off to King Cyrus.

17. Then Evacoras,'®® the Lacedaemonians’ general, detached every

151 This is a highly abbreviated, and somewhat garbled, notice of the Battle of Notium, 406
BC, drawn from Justin, 5.5.2-3. Alcibiades was not in fact present at the battle.

152 The Battle of Mitylene, 406 BC.

153 Orosius has misunderstood Justin, 5.6.5, where civitatem means ‘citizenship’, not
‘city’ as he assumes.

154 Orosius appears to have conflated the Battle of Arginusae, a naval battle that ended in
triumph for Athens in August 406 BC, with the disastrous Battle of Aegospotami in August
405 BC.

155 Orosius has badly garbled the end of Justin 5.6 and the beginning of 5.7 which reads ‘He
took himself off with eight ships to the Cypriot king, Evagoras. But the Spartan commander... ’
Orosius has taken ‘Cypriot’ as a noun and assumed that the accusative of Evagoras is a nomina¬
tive in apposition with ‘Spartan commander’.

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state from the Athenians, leaving them with nothing but an empty city, and
did not even leave them with this for long, for soon afterwards he besieged
the town. Hunger, devastation, and disease afflicted the Athenians within,
18. and after suffering all these horrendous torments, which are terri¬
fying even to relate, and seeing they had no hope but death, they sued for
peace.

17157

1. At this moment, there was a great debate among the Spartans and their
allies. The overwhelming majority of them declared themselves in favour
of razing this war-mongering city to the ground and annihilating its hated
people along with their name, 2. but the Spartans said that they would
not allow one of Greece’s two eyes to be gouged out.'^* In addition, they
promised that they would make peace if the fortifications of the port of
Piraeus that led to the town were knocked down and if of their own free
will the Athenians handed over the remainder of their fleet and would then
accept 30 governors*^* chosen by the Spartans. 3. After the Athenians agreed
and succumbed to these terms, the Lacedaemonians appointed Lysander to
draw up the laws that the city would have to obey.

4. This year was remarkable for the capture of Athens, the death of
Darius, king of the Persians, and the exile of the Sicilian tyrant Dionysius.'®

5. Now the 30 governors appointed for Athens rose up to become 30
tyrants. They first went out accompanied by 3,000 bodyguards and soon also
had by their side 700 soldiers from the victorious army.'®' 6. After killing
Alcibiades, who was burnt alive after being trapped in his room while on the
road fleeing from them, they inaugurated an indiscriminate slaughter that
would fall on all alike. 7. Eor after his death, the Thirty felt sure that there
would be no one to take vengeance on them and so drained dry what was
left of the wretched city with their slaughter and plundering. As a warning to
terrify the rest, they even murdered one of their own number, Theramenes,
when they realised that he disagreed with what they were doing.

156 404 BC.

157 The material in this chapter until section 14 draws heavily on Justin, 5.8.3-5.10.11.

158 This striking phrase is taken from Justin, 5.8.4.

159 ‘rectores’.

160 This synchronism is taken from Justin, 5.8.7, but there is no evidence that Dionysius,
who mled from 405—67 BC, was ever exiled.

161 i.e. Spartans.

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103

8. The result was that everyone began to flee from the city in all direc¬
tions, and when the Spartans forbade that hospitality be given to these exiles
in any part of Greece, they all took themselves off to Argos and Thebes.
There they received such lavish hospitality that they not only assuaged their
grief at losing their country, but even began to hope that they could recover it.

9. Among these exiles was Thrasybulus, an active man, well-known among
them because of his noble birth, and the first to dare to act for his country.
The exiles therefore gathered themselves together, seized the fortress of
Phyle on the borders of Attica, and then gained in strength as they were
reinforced by aid given by many states. The Syracusan orator Lysias sent
them 500 men and the wages to pay them, giving aid, he said, to the city that
was the common homeland of all who cultivated eloquence.'®

10 . A fierce battle ensued, but, as one side was fighting for their country’s
freedom and the other to keep it in the power of foreigners, the battle itself
gave judgment on their courage and causes. The tyrants were defeated and,
on fieeing into the city, removed all those Athenians whom they had previ¬
ously chosen as bodyguards from guarding the city, as they suspected them
of treachery. 11 . They even dared to try to bribe Thrasybulus himself, but
after they saw that their hopes were in vain, they summoned help from
Lacedaemon and rushed out to wage war again. In the battle, the two cruel¬
lest tyrants of all were cut down.'®^ 12 . When Thrasybulus realised that the
majority of the others who had been defeated and routed were Athenians,
he went off in pursuit, shouting out to them. He stayed them with his speech
and bound them to him with his entreaties, setting before their eyes those
from whom they wanted to flee and those to whom they wished to flee for
refuge. He said that he had taken up arms against 30 tyrants, not against the
wretched citizenry of Athens, and told them that rather than flee, all those
who remembered that they were Athenians ought now rather to follow him
and redeem the Athenians’ liberty.

13 . This speech made such an impression on them that they soon
returned to the city and forced the tyrants to abandon their citadel and move
to Eleusis. When they had received back into the city their fellow citizens
who had been in exile up to that time, they roused the tyrants to war through
envy, for to them the liberty of others seemed to be their own enslavement.
14 . Then, after war had been declared, when initially the tyrants came as

162 Orosius follows Justin in calling Lysias a Syracusan. Though born in Syracuse, Lysias
lived as a metic in Athens. He fled to Megara after the rise of the Thirty.

163 The Battle of Munychia, 403 BC. The two tyrants are named by Justin, 5.9.15, as
Critias and Hippolochus.

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if to negotiate, they were taken in an ambush and cut down like sacrificial
victims for peace

And so after the Athenians were reunited and had wept endless tears
of great joy, they renewed the first foundations of their regained liberty,
making a declaration under oath that the discord and animosity of the past
be consigned to permanent oblivion and everlasting silence. 15. And, as
if they were fashioning a new style of life and a new, happy existence for
themselves, they called this kind of agreement an ‘amnesty’, which means
the abolition of grievances.

This would have been a very wise decision by the Athenians, especially
after they had gone through so many recorded instances of suffering, had
human arrangements the power to endure with men’s consent in the form in
which they were originally conceived.'®^ 16. But this decree was corrupted
almost as soon as the very words of the agreement were spoken, and to such
a degree that scarcely two years later the great Socrates, the most famous of
philosophers, was driven by the wrongs which he suffered to take his life by
poison before their very eyes.*'’*’ Hardly 40 years after this, I pass over other
matters, the Athenians completely lost their liberty and ended as the slaves
of Philip, the king of the Macedonians.

17. Nevertheless, the Athenians, who were the wisest race of men, learnt
well enough from their misfortunes that through harmony even the smallest
affairs flourish, whereas through disharmony the greatest founder For
seeing that all achievements or failures which happen abroad have their
roots in, and grow from, domestic arrangements, they decided to abstain
from hatred at home and from war abroad. In this way, they left their
descendants the example of their fall and advice on how to recover, if only
the feeble hckleness of the human mind could in times of prosperity keep
to what it decided on in adversity.

164 This strikingly pagan phrase is taken verbatim from Justin, 5.10.9.

165 Orosius’s message is that human actions devoid of divine grace are doomed to failure.
Compare 7.6.5 for a successful amnesty in the emperor Claudius’s reign which Orosius insists
was produced by an act of grace on God’s part as Christians were by this time present in Rome.

166 This judgment may be Orosius’s own, as Justin makes no mention of Socrates and
while Augustine approved of him, City of God, 8.3, his highest praise is reserved for Plato,
City of God, 8.11.

167 Sallust, The War against Jugurtha, 10.6.

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105

18168

1. At almost the same time, a civil war, or rather a war more than civil,
which took parricide to bring it to a close, broke out among the Persians.
On the death of King Darius, his sons, Artaxerxes and Cyrus, fought for
the kingdom.'™ The war was waged after great preparations had been made
on both sides and brought ruin to both provinces and their peoples. 2. In
this conflict, chance brought the two brothers, rushing together from their
different sides, face to face. First, Artaxerxes was wounded by his brother,
but escaped death because of the speed of his horse; however, soon after¬
wards, Cyrus was overcome by the royal cohort and this put an end to the
fray.'^' Artaxerxes seized the booty of his brother’s forces and his army, and
then assured himself of control over the kingdom by killing his brother.

3. So all of Asia and Europe, at times individually and at times joined
together, were entangled in slaughter and crime.

4. Behold, how in such a small book and with a scant number of words I
have listed the acts of a great number of provinces, peoples, and cities, and
how all I have set down has involved great sorrow. For who could describe
the disasters of those times, the deaths that occurred, or equal their sorrows
with his tearsl™

5. But these deeds have been blunted by the passage of the centuries and
for us they have become either rhetorical exercises or simply entertaining
tales. Flowever, if someone were to pay more attention to these matters and
apply himself with his whole mind to these wars and their causes and, as if
he had been set on the top of a watchtower, gauge the nature of these two
ages, I can easily say that he would judge that past events could not have
been so wretchedly troubled and thrown into confusion without God’s wrath
and hostility, nor the affairs of our own time be so well arranged without
God’s kindness and mercy.

6. After these events, Sicily was struck by a powerful earthquake and
was, moreover, devastated by seething fire and hot ash from Mount Etna
which destroyed many fields and farms.

168 The Persian material in this chapter is drawn, in a heavily abbreviated form, from
Justin, 5.11.

169 A paraphrase of Lucan Pharsalia, 1.1, which is Orosius’s own.

170 Darius II who died in 405 BC.

171 The Battle of Cunaxa, 401 BC.

172 Virgil, Aeneid, 2.36Iff.

173 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1591 = 327 AUC/427 BC, which
is too early for Orosius’s chronological sequence.

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7. Then the city of Atalante, which lay next to the territory of Locris,
was cut off by a sudden onrush of the sea and left a desolate island.'^'* Plague
fell upon the wretched remnants of the Athenians and laid waste to them for
a long timed’^

1 . 355 years after the foundation of the City,'’® the siege of Veii, which had
lasted for ten whole years, destroyed the besiegers rather than the besieged.
Eor the Romans had lost many men to the frequent, sudden sorties of their
enemies and were forced to run the risks of war during the winter, spending
the winter under canvas and enduring cold and hunger in the sight of their
enemies. 2. They finally captured the town in a surprise attack from tunnels
without giving any worthy demonstration of Roman courage.'”

3. This useful rather than noble victory was followed by the exile of the
dictator Camillus, who had defeated the people of Veil,'’® and then by the
invasion of the Gauls and the burning of the city. 4. Let someone dare, if he
can, to compare this disaster with any upset of the present day, even though
tales of past troubles are not given the same weight as injuries suffered in
the present.

5. The Senonian Gauls led by Brennus were laying siege with a large
and powerful army to the town of Clusinum, which is now called Tuscia,'”
when they saw the Roman envoys who had come to make peace between
the two parties, fighting against them in the front line. Outraged, they lifted
the siege of Clusinum and marched on Rome with their entire force.'*® 6.
As they came on, they were met by the consul Fabius and his army, but

174 Jerome, Chronicle. A Abr. 1592 = 328 AUCIA26 BC; again this is too early for Orosi-
us’s naiTative sequence.

175 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.\5%l = 323 At/C/431 BC; again too early for Orosius’s narra¬
tive sequence.

176 399 BC. Livy, 5.23, places the end of the siege in 358 At/C/396 BC.

177 Orosius draws on Florus, 1.6.8-9, for his account of the fall of Veii; for a fuller account,
see Livy, 5.22-23.

178 Augustine, City of God, 3.17, mentions the exile of Camillus as an act of ingratitude
at Rome.

179 The Senonian Gauls’ original home was by the banks of the Seine, but by this time
they had occupied a strip of land by the Adriatic south of Ravenna, known as the Gallic Lands,
the ager Gallicus. Clusinum is the modem Chiusi, and normally spelt Clusium in antiquity;
perhaps Orosius has been confused by Livy’s constant use of Clusini, i.e. ‘the people of
Clusium’ in his account. Only Orosius asserts that the town was called Tuscia.

180 This story is found in Livy, 5.36.

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Fabius did not stop them - rather the enemy’s onslaught cut his army down,
laying them low, as if they were a crop ready to be harvested, and passed
over them.'®' The river Halia bears witness to Fabius’s disaster, just as the
Cremera does to that of the Fabii.'®^

It would not be easy, even had Rome not been burnt afterwards as well,
for anyone to recall a similar disaster to Roman arms. 7. The Gauls entered
the city that lay open before them. They butchered the senators who sat
rigidly in their seats like statues, cremated them by firing their homes,
and buried them under the fallen gables of their own roofs. 8. They then
laid siege to all the surviving young men of the town whom our sources
agree numbered scarcely 1,000 and who were lying low in the citadel on
the Capitol Hill.'®® There through hunger, disease, desperation, and fear the
Gauls wore them down, subdued them, and finally sold them; 9. for the
Romans made peace by handing over 1,000 pounds of gold as the price for
the Gauls’ departure. This was not because Rome had such a low reputation
among the Gauls, but because they had already ground the town down so
much that it was unable to pay more.'®"'

10. When the Gauls left, where there had once been a city marked
out, there was a horrible heap of formless ruins. On all sides the sound of
echoing voices'®® of those wandering through the rubble and unknowingly
over their own possessions resounded, keeping them on tenterhooks as they
nervously listened out. 11. Their spirits quaked with horror; even the silence
was terrifying,^^^ for small numbers in a great space produce panic. As a
result, they contemplated, decided, and, indeed, attempted to change where
they lived, dwell in another town, and even to call themselves by a different
name.'®®

181 Q. Fabius Ambustus, who was not a consul but one of the militaiy tribunes with
consular power who ruled Rome at this time.

182 The account of the battle is taken from Fionas, 1.7.7; however, the account of the
embassy is not, as Fionas, 1.7.6, makes no mention of Roman ambassadors fighting against the
Gauls and blames the embassy’s failure on Gallic barbarism. The Halia is normally referred
to as the Allia, and may be the modem Fonte di Papa, 12 miles from Rome. Fabius was not a
consul, an eiTor that Orosius copies from Floms. In fact, three Fabii were present among the
military tribunes with consular power, Livy, 5.36.10-11. Florus probably confused Quintus
Fabius, one of the ambassadors who fought the Gauls (Livy, 5.36.7) with Quintus Sulpicius
Longus, the commander at the Halia, and Orosius has followed this error.

183 This figure and the reference to ‘sources’ is taken from Florus, 1.7.13.

184 For doubts about the extent of the Gallic sack, see Cornell (1995) 313-18.

185 A slight adaptation of Virgil, Georgies, 4.50.

186 Virgil, Aene/J, 2.755.

187 A proposal by some of the tribunes; see Livy, 5.49.8.

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12. Behold the times to which the present is compared! Behold the times
for which nostalgia sighs! Behold the times that demand penance for the
religion that had been selected, or rather neglected!'** 13. In truth, these
two sacks of Rome are alike and can be compared with one another.'*^ One
raged on for six months, the other ran its course in three days. The Gauls
exterminated the people, destroyed the City, and pursued the very name of
Rome down to its uttermost ashes. The Goths abandoned their intention to
plunder and drove columns of confused citizens to safe havens - namely the
Holy Places of the City. In the first sack scarcely a senator, even out of those
who fled, was to be found alive, in the second scarcely one could be found
who had perished, save for some who done so by accident while hiding. 14.
I could safely say that the number that were saved in the first incident was
the same as the number who died in the last.

Plainly, as the facts show, and as ought to be stated, during the present
disaster God was more enraged than the men involved, for He Himself
carried out what the Goths could not have done and so showed why He had
sent them. 15. Eor since it is beyond human powers to burn up bronze beams
and overturn the mass of great edifices, the forum with its empty idols,
whose wretched superstition lies about what is God and what is mortal, was
cast down by a thunderbolt and all those abominations which the enemy’s
fire did not reach were overturned by fire sent from heaven.'®"

16. Now since there is an abundance of material, which cannot in any
way be dealt with definitively in this book, I have put an end here to this
volume so that we may examine what is left in the ones that follow.

188 Orosius has carefully omitted all mention of pagan religious events during the sack
by the Gauls that would have undercut his position. These included Juno’s geese saving the
Capitol from the Gauls and the Pontifex Maximus’s sacrifice on the Quirinal Hill; see Livy,
5.41 and 5.47.

189 i.e. the sack of Rome by the Gauls described here and Alaric’s sack of Rome described
at 7.39. The contrast between the two events is a centrepiece of Orosius’s defence of Chris¬
tianity.

190 See 7.39.18.

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PREFACE

1 . I have already stated in the preceding book, and now, out of necessity,
repeat that in discussing the past conflicts of this world in accordance with
your instructions, it is impossible to expound everything or go through
everything that was done or how everything came to be done. This is
because there is a great, indeed innumerable, amount of material written at
great length by a vast number of men. These authors, however, do not have
the same motive as I do, although they deal with the same affairs - for they
unroll the history of wars, while I am unrolling wars’ miseries.

2. Moreover, the very breadth of the material about which I am
complaining puts me in narrow straits and I am bound all the tighter by this
anxiety - namely that if, in my eagerness to be concise, I omit some event
or other, it will be thought that I did not know about it or that it did not
happen at that time. But, on the other hand, if I gird my loins to speak about
everything, not expatiating at length, but just using concise summaries, I
would make my work obscure with the result that most people will think
that what I have said appears to say nothing at all. 3. This is of the greatest
concern, since I am taking care to do the opposite and give an account of
the true forces of history, not a mere picture of the past. For concision and
obscurity, or rather, as is always the case, the obscurity of concision, while
producing an appearance of knowing the facts, in reality takes away the
power of understanding them. Now, although I know both of these vices
should be avoided, I will indulge in both of them, so that each might be
mitigated by the other and that in this way my account should not seem to
omit many events nor to be too cursory.

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1 '

1 . 364 years after the foundation of the City, a year which weighed heavily
on Rome because of her enslavement, something which she had never
known before, but which Greece considered magnificent because of the
peace, something which she had hardly known before, while the Gauls
occupied and sold a captive Rome reduced to ashes, Artaxerxes, the king
of the Persians, through his envoys ordered all of Greece to desist from
fighting and live at peace, warning that he would wage war on anyone who
broke the peace.

2. When he gave this order, the Greeks could have stoutly ignored him in
the same way that they had often bravely defeated him, had they not drunk
down a proffered opportunity of peace, wherever it came from, as eagerly
as they had longed for one, (3. The fact that they set their wars aside so
easily and, indeed, on dishonourable terms, showed with what suffering
and misery they had waged them up to this point. Eor what could be more
dishonourable for free and valiant men than to lay down their arms and
submit themselves to peace on the command of a man who was far away,
whom they had often beaten, who was still an enemy, and, even at this time,
still continually threatening them?), had the will to fight not melted away in
all their weary hearts merely at the sound of peace simply being decreed,
and had this unexpected respite not weakened them while they were dazed
and stunned after the effort of standing to arms each day, before a treaty
made of their own free will could give them the self-same respite.^ 4.1 shall
now outline, as concisely as possible, whence came such weariness in the
hearts and bodies of all the peoples throughout the whole of Greece that it
persuaded their wild spirits to acquiesce so easily in a peace that had previ¬
ously been unknown to them.^

5. The Lacedaemonians, being men, and more than this, men from Greece,
the more they possessed, the more they wanted."^ So, after conquering Athens,

1 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 6.1-6.

2 This is the so-called King’s Peace, or Peace of Antalchidas, of 386 BC. For its terms,
see Xenophon, Hellenica 5.1.34. For a modem discussion of the treaty, see Briant (2002) 649.
Orosius is embroidering Justin, 6.6, from whom he takes his synchronism with events at Rome
(6.6.5). However, this chronology is awry as the sack of Rome is normally assumed to have
occurred in 390/389 BC.

3 For a discussion of the complex relations between Persia and the Greek states at this time,
see Briant (2002) 635^6.

4 This sententia is drawn from Justin, 6.1, though the addition ‘from Greece’ is Orosius’s
own doing, possibly reflecting the tensions of his own day.

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they drank deeply of the hope of lording it over all of Asia. 6. They therefore
waged war on all of the East, appointing Hircylides as the commander of
their expedition.® He, when he saw that he would have to fight against Pharn-
abazus and Tissaphernes, the two most powerful prefects of Artaxerxes the
Persian king, devised a plan as required by these circumstances to avoid the
heavy blow of engaging with both of them, and declared war and attacked
one of them, while making peace with, and so delaying, the other.

7 . Pharnabazus then accused Tissaphernes of treachery before Artax¬
erxes, their common king, above all because he had made a treaty with the
enemy in time of war. He urged the king to appoint in his place the Athenian
Conon, who at that time happened to be in exile on Cyprus, and to make
him commander of the war at sea. Conon was therefore given 500 talents,
summoned by Pharnabazus, and put in charge of the fleet.

8. On discovering this, the Lacedaemonians sent envoys to Hercyion,
the king of Egypt,'’ seeking naval support, and received from him 100
ready-equipped triremes and 600,000 modii of corn.’ They also garnered
together a great amount of support from their allies on all sides 9 . and unani¬
mously elected Agesilaus the commander of their army.® Agesilaus was
lame in one foot, but in these troubled times the Spartans preferred to have
a lame king rather than a lame kingdom.® Rarely ever have two generals so
equal in all their efforts confronted one another in a single war. Worn out
by the fierce fighting and covered in blood, both retired from the fray as if
they were undefeated.

10 . Conon then, through his own devices, received another payment
from the Great King,”* returned to his fleet, and invaded the enemy’s terri¬
tory, storming towers, forts, and the other garrisons there. Like an unleashed
storm, he laid low everything wherever he went}^ 11 . The Lacedaemonians,

5 Perhaps a corruption from Justin, where the name given is Hercyclides. The commander’s
name was in fact Dercylidas.

6 Hercyion is the Psammetichus of Diodorus Siculus, 14.35. In fact, the king concerned is
Nepherites I, founder of the 29* Dynasty (398-392 BC).

7 A modius is approximately two gallons.

8 Orosius suppresses Justin’s, 6.2.4-5, comment that this was done in response to an oracle
from Delphi.

9 This bon mot is taken from Justin, 6.2.6.

10 i.e. not via a satrap’s intercession. Orosius has omitted Justin’s, 6.2.11—15, explanation
for this - namely that Conon’s men had mutinied because their pay had been sequestrated by
the two satraps.

11 The phrase is a reworking of poetic vocabulary from Virgil, Aeneid, 7.222-23 and
Georgies, 2.310-31.

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afflicted by troubles at home, ceased to ogle at foreign things and cast aside
their hopes of mastery now that the peril of slavery loomed. They recalled
Agesilaus whom they had sent to Asia with his army, to help defend his
homeland.

12. Meanwhile, Pisander, who had been left in command at Sparta by
King Agesilaus, had marshalled the largest and best-equipped fleet possible.
Moved to emulate the courage of Agesilaus, who was fighting on land, he
undertook a naval sortie, ranging along the coast.

13. Now Conon after taking up his commission, began to think about
two things: namely how to look after his allies and how to show loyalty
to his country - so that he might demonstrate his natural feelings towards
the latter, while employing his energy on behalf of the former. In this, he
showed himself to be most concerned about his fellow-citizens, as for their
peace and liberty he waged a war that spilt foreign blood and fought against
their most arrogant enemies at the king’s peril, hut for a prize that would
fall to his homeland.

14. So the two sides fought a naval battle, the Persians commanded
by Conon and the Spartans by Pisander. Soldiers, oarsmen, and even the
commanders, were all dragged together with equal frenzy to their mutual
slaughter.*^ 15. The scale and savagery of this war is shown hy the fact that
from this time on the power of the Lacedaemonians declined and never
recovered — From thence the tide of fortune left the Spartans’ shore and
ebb’d much faster than it flow’d before^^ - until, exhausted by their rising
with pain and their piteous collapse, they lost both their power and their
very name. 16. But for the Athenians this self-same battle was the beginning
of recovering power, just as it was the beginning of its end for the Lacedae¬
monians.''*

Eirst, the Thebans, bolstered by help from Athens, marched on the
Spartans who were crippled and panic-stricken from their previous defeat.
They had great confidence because of the courage and energy of their
general, Epaminondas, with whom they thought that they could easily gain
power over all of Greece.17. A land battle took place that the Thebans
won with minimal effort.'" Lysander was defeated and killed in this battle

12 The Battle of Cnidus, 394 BC.

13 A close paraphrase of Virgil, Aeneid, 2.169-70 with ‘Spartans’ substituted for ‘Greeks’.

14 A reworking of Justin, 6.4.1.

15 Ancient Thebes' most famous statesman, c. 418-362 BC. Oddly, Orosius makes no
mention of his most famous battle, Leuctra, fought in 371 BC.

16 The Battle of Haliartus, 395 BC. Orosius has mistakenly placed the Spartan defeat at

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and Pausanias, the other Lacedaemonian general, was accused of treachery
and forced into exile.

18 . After their victory, the Thebans marshalled their entire army and
marched on Sparta, thinking that they would enter a city that was devoid of
a garrison with no trouble at all. For they had already destroyed almost all of
Sparta’s troops, killed her king, and saw that all her allies had deserted her.
19 . The Lacedaemonians, driven on by the threat to their city, held a levy
of such untrained troops as they had to hand, and marched out to meet the
foe. But after this army had been defeated once, it had neither the courage
nor the spirit to face the victors again. 20 . While this slaughter, suffered
almost entirely by one side, was going on, suddenly King Agesilaus, who
had been summoned from Asia, unexpectedly entered the war. He marched
on the Thebans, who had become too confident and too slipshod because of
their double victory, and defeated them without difficulty. This was all the
easier for him as he had a force that had hardly been touched by battle, but
even so he was badly wounded himself.'^ 21 . When the Athenians learnt that
the Lacedaemonians had taken heart because of their unexpected victory,
trembling in fear because of their previous enslavement from which they
had hardly then begun to recover, they gathered together an army and joined
it to the Boeotians in their support.'* They entrusted their force to Iphicrates,
a mere youth of hardly 20 years of age, but whose maturity of spirit shored
up the weakness of his years. 22 . On hearing of Agesilaus’s return, Conon
too, since, though in charge of a Persian army, he was an Athenian, also
began to lay waste to the Lacedaemonians’ land once more. And so the
Spartans, surrounded and terrified by the clash of their enemies’ arms that
encompassed them on every side, languished in almost unplumbed depths
of despair.

23 . But Conon, after having sated himself by ravaging the enemy’s soil,
returned to Athens - an event which caused great joy to its citizens, but gave
the man himself sorrow when he saw how his city, which had once been
adorned by its people and culture, now lay destroyed and was a pitiable,
squalid desert of ruins. 24 . And so he engineered a great monument to his
piety and loyalty by rebuilding it. For the town that had been pillaged by the

Cnidus before this battle, whereas in fact it took place afterwards. Moreover, Epaminondas
took no part in the battle.

17 The Battle of Coronea, August 394 BC.

18 An embroidered version of Justin, 6.5.

19 Iphicrates was a major military innovator who substantially lightened the traditional
hoplite’s equipment and changed his tactics. Cornelius Nepos wrote a brief Life of the general.

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Lacedaemonians he refilled with plunder from Lacedaemon, and rebuilt a
town burnt down by the Persians with Persians as its builders.

25. Meanwhile, Artaxerxes, the king of the Persians, as stated at the
beginning of the chapter, commanded, via his envoys, all the peoples of
Greece to lay down their arms and live in peace. He did this not because he
took pity on their weary state, but in case they were tempted to invade his
kingdom while he was occupied with a war in Egypt.^'

1. Therefore, while all Greece relaxed its guard in its much-longed-for peace
and grew weak through its inactivity at home, the Lacedaemonians, more
through restlessness than strength, and becoming unbearable more from
their wild madness than because of their courage, embarked on clandestine
warfare, although they had renounced war itself. 2. Eor when they saw that
the Arcadians were away, they launched a sudden raid and broke into their
fortress.The Arcadians were enraged by this wrong and, gathering Theban
support, sought to reclaim what they had lost in this razzia. 3. In the battle
that followed, the Lacedaemonian general, Archidamus,^^ was wounded,
and after he saw his men being cut down as if they were already defeated,
he sent a herald to ask that the bodies of the dead might be buried. Among
the Greeks this is the customary sign of admitting defeat. 4. The Thebans,
therefore, content at this concession of victory, gave the order to spare the
vanquished and put an end to the struggle.

5. After a truce lasting a few days, Lacedaemonians reverted once more
to launching other attacks. The Thebans and their general Epaminondas
had the confidence to invade Lacedaemon on the grounds that there would
be no danger since the city was deserted. They advanced in silence on
Lacedaemon at the dead of night, but did not encounter it as unguarded or
without defences as they had anticipated. 6. The old men, along with the
remaining mass of those not yet of military age, had discovered that the
enemy was advancing on them and armed themselves. This force stationed
itself in the very narrows of the city gates and, though numbering hardly 100
men burdened by old age, charged an army 15,000 strong. This group was

20 The ‘Persian builders’ may be a reference to the Daric, a Persian gold coin.

21 For this war see Briant (2002) 650-55.

22 The fortress of Cromnus, the raid took place in 364 BC.

23 Archidamus III (360-338 BC).

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bearing the brunt of the heavy hghting when the Spartan army arrived and
instantly decided to attack the Thebans in open combat.

7. After battle was joined, the Lacedaemonians got the worst of it,
until the Theban commander Epaminondas who fought too recklessly, was
suddenly wounded.^'* This brought terror born of grief to the Thebans and
stunned amazement born of joy to the Spartans; and both sides withdrew by
tacit consent. 8. Epaminondas was gravely wounded and when he heard of
his men’s victory, he kissed his shield and lifted up the hand that covered his
wound, opening an exit for his blood and for death an entrance. His death
was followed by the Thebans’ decline, for they seemed not merely to have
lost their general, but to have perished with him.^^

9 . 1 have woven this tangled basket of undigested history and, following
the evidence with my words, set out the confused cycles of war that were
waged hither and thither with insane fury. It seems to me that the more that
I have kept to the order of the events, the more disorderly my writing has
become.

10 . Eor who could number, place in order, or explain all the incitements
to hatred of all kinds and the reasons for these wars that the Lacedaemo¬
nians’ wicked lust for mastery roused up in so many people, cities, and
provinces? They themselves could be said to have suffered no less from
the chaos brought about by these wars as from the wars themselves. 11 .
Indeed, as this war dragged on without ceasing for several generations, the
Athenians, Lacedaemonians, Arcadians, Boeotians, Thebans, and finally
Greece, Asia, Persia, and Egypt, along with Libya and the largest of the
islands, all waged war by land and sea at the same time in a set of mutually
inextricable campaigns. Even if I could list these wars, I would be unable to
recount the thousands of men who were slaughtered in them.

12 . Now let someone damn the present and praise the past - whoever
does not realise that now all the people in these towns and provinces grow
old watching games and at the theatre, whereas then they wasted away on
military service and in battle.^® 13 . The most flourishing town of that age
which aimed to rule the entire East, the town of the Lacedaemonians, was
reduced to barely 100 old men; for surrounded by unending troubles, she

24 The Battle of Mantinea, 362 BC. Oddly, Orosius makes no mention of Epaminondas’s
victory at Leuctra in 371 BC.

25 Up to this point, the chapter is based on Justin, 6.6-9. The melodramatic account of
Epaminondas’s death is found in Valerius Maximus, 3.2.5.

26 A strikingly positive assessment of the games and theatre, compared to the attitude
expressed below at 3.4.5-6.

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wretchedly squandered away her youth. 14. Do men whose cities today are
full of the old and boys and which grow rich as their youth travels safely
abroad and earns money on these peaceful forays to spend on pleasures
at home, complain about their lot? If they do, perhaps the reason is that
the present always seems worthless to fickle humanity and life itself has
become irksome to those aching to perform, or hear of, novelties.

1. 376 years after the foundation of the City, all Achaea was struck by a
most ferocious earthquake and two cities, namely Ebora and Helice, were
swallowed up as the ground gaped open.^’

2. But I myself, on the other hand, could have mentioned similar events
that were foretold, began, but did not reach their final end in our own times
at Constantinople, which also a short time ago became a capital of the
world.Eor after a terrible warning and prescient feeling of its own ills,
the troubled earth trembled from its very depths below, while above there
hung a flame spreading from the heavens. This continued until God, moved
by the prayers of Prince Arcadius and his Christian people, turned aside the
destruction that threatened them, 3. proving that He alone is the Saviour of
the humble and the Punisher of the wicked.^^ But modesty dictates that I
note, rather than discuss, these matters, so that he who knows of them may
remember them and he who does not may make enquiries about them.^"

4. Meanwhile, the Romans who had been hard-pressed and worn down
for 70 years by the continual wars waged by the Vulsci, and also by the

27 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1637. Orosius’s chronology is therefore two
years out as this date in fact coincides with 374 AUC. Ebora, normally Bura, and Helice lay
in Achaea on the southern coast of the Gulf of Corinth. They were destroyed in 373 BC. The
event was well known in antiquity; see Diodorus Siculus, 18.48; Strabo, 8.7.2; Ovid, Metamor¬
phoses, 1.263; and Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.48. Orosius has slipped back in terms of
his narrative sequence.

28 A very western reference to the de facto division of the Roman world on the death of
Theodosius in AD 395. The empire was split between his elder son, Arcadius, whose court was
at Constantinople and his younger son, Honorius, whose capital was Rome.

29 The incident occurred in AD 396. Augustine, On the Destruction of the City of Rome
{De Excidio Urbis Romae) 7-8 = CCL 46 258-60 describes the incident at length. However,
Augustine interprets the cloud as a warning from God to a sinful city and His mercy lies in that
fact that He chose to frighten rather than punish the town. Where Orosius has a town protected
by God from a natural disaster because of its merits, Augustine sees a wicked town punished
by divine agency.

30 cf. 6.11.30.

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Faliscians, Aequi, and Sutrini, finally, under Camillus’s leadership, captured
these peoples’ cities in the times I have just discussed, and put an end to
this recrudescent struggle. 5. At the same time, under the command of Titus
Quintius, at the river Halia they defeated the Praenestines who had reached
the gates of Rome with war and slaughter.^'

1. 384 years after the Foundation of the City, in the consulate of Lucius
Genucius and Quintus Servilius, a great plague held all of Rome in its
clutches.2. This was not like a troubled climate when the weather varies
a little from what is expected, such as unseasonable dryness in winter, a
sudden heat-wave in spring, unaccustomed heavy rain in summer, or the
chaotic charms of a rich autumn, to which we can add the poisonous breezes
from the groves of Calabria, that bring sudden attacks of violent illness,^^
3. rather it had severe, long-lasting effects and spared neither sex nor old or
young. For two years without ceasing, it infected all alike with its decay and
even those it did not kill, it left with their flesh foully decayed and wasted
away.^'*

4. Now I suspect that those who complain about our Christian times
would complain, if I happened, at this point, to pass over the ceremonies
that the Romans used to placate the gods and alleviate disease. 5. When the
plague grew stronger by the day, their priests were the ones who persuaded
them to put on plays, as this is what the gods demanded. So to drive out
a plague that afflicted their bodies for a short time, they summoned up a
disease that would afflict their souls forever. 6. Now here is a rich source of
sorrow and indignation for me, but, as Your Reverence^^ has already devoted
your love of wisdom and truth to this matter, it would not be right for me to
dare to speak more about this. Let it be enough for me to have drawn atten-

31 The Roman history in this chapter is drawn from Eutropius, 2.1-2. Camillus is Marcus
Furius Camillus, militaiy tribune, inteiTex, and dictator. His activity dates between 401-381
BC. The Praenestines were defeated in 380 BC. 'Quintius’ is a misspelling of Quinctius, who
is normally known by his cognomen, Cincinnatus, see 2.12.7-8, where the same misspelling is
found. The Halia is the Allia, a tributary of the Tiber.

32 L. Genucius Aventinensis and Q. Servilius Ahala were consuls in 365 BC, i.e. 389 At/C.
Orosius’s chronology has slipped by five years.

33 A reference to the Atabulus wind, now known as the Sirocco, see Sidonius Apollinaris,
1.5.8, and Sallares (2002) 74.

34 cf. Livy, 7.1.7-8.

35 i.e. Augustine.

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tion to it and referred my readers of whatever opinion to depth of discussion
found in your reading of these matters.^®

1 . The following year a suitably sad prodigy followed on from this pitiable
disease and its even more pitiable expiation. The ground suddenly sprung
apart in the middle of the City and all at once the gaping jaws of hell were
visible in a great chasm.^’ 2. This shameless cavern in the yawning void
remained for many days a terrifying spectacle for all to behold. According
to the oracles of the gods, it was required, horrible though it was, that a man
be buried alive in it. 3. Throwing himself into its vile jaws, Marcus Curtius,
an armed knight, gave unforeseen satiety to the cruel earth for whom, unless
it also tore itself open to suck down the living, the numbers it had taken by
the grave through this great plague seemed too few.^*

1 . 388 years after the foundation of the City, there was another terrible
flood of Gauls who encamped along the river Anio by the fourth milestone
from the city. With their weight of numbers and fierce courage, they could,
without a doubt, have occupied the troubled City, had they not grown weak
through idleness and self-indulgence. 2. Manlius Torquatus began a savage
battle against them single-handedly, and the dictator Titus Quintius brought
it to an end with his blood-soaked attack.^^ A great number of Gauls fled
from this fight and, after regrouping their forces, rushed once more into
battle where they were defeated by the dictator Gains Sulpicius."^°

3. A short time afterwards, a war was fought against the Etruscans under

36 Orosius’s remarks reflect standard Christian invective against the theatre. He is probably
referring to Augustine’s attack on the theatre in his City of God, 1.32. His comments here sit
uneasily with those made at 3.2.12.

37 cf. Virgil, Aeneid, 8.243-44.

38 cf. Livy, 7.6.1-6. Curtius here is described as a ‘young man distinguished in war’ rather
than as a knight. Orosius dates the event to 386 BC, but it is traditionally placed in 392 BC.

39 Quinctius’s attack took place close to the Colline Gate.

40 The Gallic incursion is normally dated to 361-358 BC, i.e. 393 AUC. Manlius fought a
Gallic chieftain in single combat. On killing him, he stripped off the Gaul’s torque, thus earning
himself the name Torquatus or ‘betorqued’; see Virgil, Aeneid, 8.660. Orosius’s account is
drawn from Eutropius, 2.5, though he has added the moralising note about the Gaul’s self¬
emasculation through idleness and the comment about the bloody nature of Quinctius’s attack.

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the command of Gains Marcius - one can conjecture how many men were
slain given that 8,000 Etruscans were captured."^'

4 . For the third time in those days, the Gauls poured down to plunder
the coast and the lowlands under the Alban Hills. After a new levy had
been held and ten legions enrolled, 60,000 Romans marched out to fight
them, though the Latins refused to come to Rome’s aid. 5. This battle was
brought to its conclusion by Marcus Valerius with the aid of a crow, whence
afterwards he was surnamed ‘Corvinus’. The Gauls’ champion was killed
and the terrified foe were brutally butchered as they fied in all directions.'*^

1 . I believe that the first treaty with Carthage that was struck at this time
should also be numbered among Rome’s ills, especially because such great
troubles arose from it that they seem to have had their beginnings in it. 2.
402 years after the foundation of the City, envoys were sent to Rome from
Carthage and made a treaty. 3. Reliable histories, the ill-omened places,
and the horror of the days in which these things were done all bear witness
that the arrival of the Carthaginians into Italy was to bring a hailstorm of
troubles and an unending shadow of continual suffering. 4 . For the night
seemed to last into the greater part of the day and a hail of stones fell from
the clouds, lashing the earth with a veritable stoning.'*^

5. At that time too Alexander the Great, truly a whirlpool of sufferings
and ill-wind for the entire East, was born.'*'*

6. It was then too that Ochus, who is also known as Artaxerxes,'*^ drove
great numbers of Jews into exile after a long and bitter war in Egypt and

41 The war is normally dated to 356 BC. Orosius’s account is drawn from Eutropius, 2.5.

42 The crow, corvus in Latin, perched on Corvinus’s helmet as he entered battle, see Livy,
7.26. Orosius’s account is drawn from Eutropius, 2.6. Orosius presumably knew of the brief
account in Elorus, 1.8.20, where the crow is referred to as a sacred bird, but suppressed this
fact. The battle is traditionally dated to 349 BC.

43 cf. Livy, 7.27.2. The treaty is normally dated to 406 At/C/348 BC. Orosius is ignorant of
the treaty recorded by Polybius, 3.22, which was struck in 507 BC, see Cornell (1995) 210-14.
The ill-omened day and ground are not, however, found in Livy. The portents mentioned by
Orosius are drawn from Livy, 7.28.7, but are dated there to 344 BC and their connection to the
treaty with Carthage is found only in Orosius.

44 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1661. For Orosius Carthage and Macedon are the two ‘inter¬
mediate kingdoms’ between Rome and Babylon, see 2.1.6. His mention of Alexander here may
be to link the two together in the reader’s mind. Alexander was born in 356 BC.

45 Artaxerxes III Ochus (359-338 BC).

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ordered them to settle in Hyrcania by the Caspian Sea. There they remain to
the present day and have greatly increased in numbers. It is believed that at
some time they will burst forth from this place.'** While waging this tempes¬
tuous war, Ochus also destroyed Sidon, the wealthiest town of the province
of Phoenicia and, although at first defeated, brought Egypt, crushed and
broken by the sword, under the rule of the Persians.'*^

1 . Immediately after this, the Romans waged a war on behalf of the
Campanians and Sedicini against the Samnites, a wealthy and well-armed
people. When this war hung in the balance, Pyrrhus, the most formidable
of the Romans’ enemies, joined the Samnites'*® and the Punic War soon
followed on the heels of the war against Pyrrhus. So, 2. although the
ever-open gates of Janus show that from the death of Numa there had been
no end to the disasters of war, from this time on the heat of their troubles
grew white-hot as if it were emblazoned over all the sky at mid-day.

3. Therefore let anyone who thinks that these Christian times should be
disparaged, make enquiries, discover, and publish abroad his findings as
to whether after the beginning of the Punic War, wars, slaughter, destruc¬
tion, and every kind of appalling death have, save in the times of Caesar
Augustus, ever ceased. 4. The one exception is a single year during the
Punic Wars which passed by like a flying bird,'*® when the Romans, because

46 Orosius has drawn the story of the expulsion of the Jews to Hyrcania from Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr 1658 = 357 BC. He has then embroidered Jerome’s account with a version
of the Magog legend, according to which the Jews in this area, sometimes known as the ‘Red
Jews’, will launch an invasion as the world comes to an end. For a full discussion of the legend,
see Anderson (1932). Notice of Alexander’s expulsion of Jews to Hyrcania only occurs in late
sources. Josephus, Against Apion, 1.22.194, referring to the works of Hecataeus of Abdera
(floruit fourth century BC) speaks of expulsions to Babylon, but not Hyrcania.

47 Orosius’s source for Artaxerxes’ capture of Sidon and Egypt is Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr. 1669 = 348 BC. In fact Artaxerxes conquered Egypt in 343 BC. For a discussion of these
campaigns, see Briant (2002) 683-87.

48 To preserve his argument Orosius has elided three separate conflicts wars together,
creating a picture of sustained warfare greater than is justified. His initial reference is to the
First Samnite War, 343-341 BC, which began with a plea to Rome from the Campanian city
of Capua for help against the Samnites, Fionas, 1.11.16. However, Pyrrhus’s arrival in 280 BC
substantially postdates not only this, but also the Second (327-321 and 316-304 BC), and
Third (298-290 BC) Samnite Wars.

49 The year concerned is 235 BC. Orosius returns to it at 4.12.4-13. Ornithomancy was a
standard form of state augury at Rome and Orosius may be sniping at it here.

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the gates of Janus were closed when the republic was suffering from fever
and disease, were seduced by this fleeting sign of peace, like by the merest
sip of cold water, and then, as the fever blazed up again all the worse, found
themselves more seriously and badly afflicted.^®

5. Nevertheless, if there is indisputable agreement that the whole world
laid down its arms for the first time in Caesar Augustus’s reign, after he had
made peace with the Parthians, set aside its quarrels, enjoyed a universal
peace and a state of quiet that had been hitherto unknown; that its peoples
obeyed Roman ordinances, preferred Roman law to their own arms, and,
spurning their own leaders, chose Roman judges in their stead; 6 . and that
Anally that every race, all the provinces, innumerable cities, countless
peoples, and every land had one desire: to cultivate peace freely and honour¬
ably and take counsel for the common good (something which previously
not even a single city, a single citizen-body, or, what is more, even brothers
in a single household had been able to do together);^' 7. if it is agreed that
these things came to pass in Caesar’s reign, it is obvious from crystal-clear
evidence that the birth in this world of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, shone its
light on Caesar’s realm. 8. And those whom envy drives to blasphemy are
compelled to recognise and admit that this peace over all the world and
its tranquil serenity came not from the wide rule of Caesar, but from the
power of the Son of God, Who became manifest in the time of Caesar, and
that the world itself with a universal understanding obeyed not the ruler of
a single city, but the world’s Creator, Who, just as the rising sun Alls the
day with light, coming in mercy clothed the world in a lasting peace. These
matters will be more fully discussed, when we come, the Lord willing, to
that place.^^

1 . Therefore, 409 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of
Manlius Torquatus and Decius Mus, the Romans waged war on the rebel¬
lious Latins.^^ In this war one consul was killed and the other committed
parricide. 2. For Manlius Torquatus killed his own son, a young man who had

50 This metaphor is repeated at 4.12.8.

51 This purple passage contains slight overtones of Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.60-62.

52 See 6.22. Augustine, City of God, 3.11, also sees the rise of Augustus as renewing the
Roman state, but avoids any imputation that this possessed theological significance.

53 Normally dated to 340 BC, i.e. 414 AUC. Orosius remains five years out in his
chronology.

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triumphantly killed Metius Tusculanus, a noble knight and one of Rome’s
most provocative and arrogant enemies at that time.^'* 3. When the battle
resumed, the other consul, on seeing that the wing he commanded was being
cut down and hard-pressed, fell of his own free will upon the enemy where
they were thickest and perished.^® 4 . Manlius, despite being victorious, did
not receive the welcome of the noble youths of Rome which is customarily
given on such occasions, as though triumphant, he was a parricide.

5. In the year following this, a vestal virgin named Minucia admitted to
sexual impurity, was condemned, and buried alive in the field which is now
called the field of wickedness.^®

1 . I shudder to recount what occurred shortly afterwards.®’ Eor in the
consulate of Claudius Marcellus and Valerius Elaccus,®* the matrons of
Rome became inflamed with an incredible madness and love of crime. 2.
It was indeed a foul and pestilential year and its slaughtered victims were
piled up in heaps on all sides. But everyone in their simple credulity still
believed that this was caused by corruption in the air, until a slave-girl came
forward and gave compelling evidence after which many matrons were first
forced to drink the poisons that they had devised, and then, as they drank
them, they perished. 3. The number of matrons involved in this conspiracy
was so large that 370 of them are said to have been condemned at single
sitting.®^

54 This incident is found in Livy, 8.7, where the Latin commander is called Geminus
Maecius. Augustine, City of God, 1.23 and 5.18, singles out Torquatus’s behaviour as exemplary.

55 Orosius suppresses entirely the pagan religious aspects of the consul’s death. Decius
Mus dedicated himself and the enemy to the gods of the underworld and the Earth in a ritual
known as devotio. The incident, along with Mus’s dedicatory prayer, is recorded by Florus,
1.12.17, and Livy, 8.9.4-8.

56 For an in-depth discussion of the punishment of Vestals and of this priesthood in general,
see Worsfold (1934). For the death of Minucia, see Livy, 8.15.7-8, who dates the incident to
416 AUC. The field was named for the crime of the vestal, but Orosius wants his readers to
believe it was named for the crime of burying Minucia alive.

57 The implication is that the women’s madness that Orosius now describes was a divine
punishment for the execution of Minucia; see 3.9.5 above.

58 M. Claudius Mai'cellus and C. Valerius Potitus Flaccus, consuls in 423 Af/C/331 BC.

59 This incident is mentioned by Augustine, City of God, 3.17, Valerius Maximus,
2.5.3, and, at greater length, Livy, 8.18. Valerius Maximus and Livy give the number of the
condemned as 180.

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1. 422 years after the foundation of the City, Alexander, the king of Epirus
and uncle of the famous Alexander the Great, brought his troops into Italy
since he was preparing to fight against Rome. He was active around the
cities neighbouring Rome, trying to strengthen his army and obtain their
support, or to detach them from his enemy. However, he was defeated and
slain in a great battle in Lucania by the Samnites who gave their aid to the
Lucanians.“

2. However, since I have gone forward some way in my account of
the disasters that Rome suffered, mentioning this Alexander reminds me
to go back a few years and, as far as I am able, I shall gather together in
a few words the great deeds of Philip, the king of the Macedonians, who
married Olympias, the sister of this Alexander of Epirus, by whom he bore
Alexander the Great.

12 «

1. 400 years after the foundation of the City, Philip, the son of Amyntas
and father of Alexander, became king of Macedonia and reigned for 25
years.® In this time, he heaped up piles of every kind of sorrow and amassed
crimes of every kind. 2. Before this, he had been handed over as a hostage
to the Thebans by his brother Alexander® and brought up for three years in
the house of the vigorous general and great philosopher, Epaminondas. 3.
After Alexander was criminally killed by his own mother Eurydice, who
had already committed adultery, killed another of her sons, left her daughter
a widow, and pledged herself in marriage to her son-in-law on the death of
her husband, Philip was forced by the people to assume the crown which he

60 Livy dates the arrival of Alexander of Molossia in Italy to 414 At/C/340 BC. The
king went to the assistance of Tarentum in 334 BC. He was killed in 331 BC at the battle of
Pandosia, the site of which lies in Bruttium, not Lucania, neai* the modem Mendicino, see
3.18.3. True to his wish to avoid vindicating pagan oracles, Orosius has suppressed the story
that Alexander had been warned to avoid the town of Pandosia by an oracle, but only knew of
the Greek Pandosia, the modem Kastri in Epirus, and hence failed to avoid his doom. See Livy,
8.24 and the discussion in Oakley (1998) 664-67, 671—72.

61 This chapter draws on, and abbreviates, heavily Justin 8. Orosius adds some moralising
sententiae and at times suppresses Justin’s paganism.

62 Philip became de facto king in 395 At/C/359 BC and was acclaimed as such in 356 BC.

63 Alexander II of Macedon, 370-368 BC. Philip was handed over as the result of a war
the Macedonians had just lost against Thebes. Philip was in Thebes from c. 368 to c. 365 BC.

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was guarding for the young son of his murdered brother.®"*

4. He was beset abroad by attacks on all sides from his enemies and at
home by fear of conspiracies which he continually discovered. However, he
first attacked Athens 5. and, on defeating her, marched on the Illyrians and,
after slaughtering many thousands of his enemies, captured the glorious
city of Larissa.®® 6 . He then invaded Thessaly, not so much out of a love of
victory, as out of a desire to take control of the Thessalians’ cavalry and add
its strength to his own army. 7. And so, after he had seized Thessaly by a
surprise attack and brought it under his power, he united the most powerful
squadrons of cavalry and units of infantry, creating an invincible army.

8. After defeating the Athenians and subjugating the Thessalians, he
took Olympias, the sister of Aruba, the king of Molossia, as his wife.®®
This Aruba thought that by making an alliance with the Macedonians by
becoming a relative of their king, he would in this way expand his own
kingdom. In this he was deceived, lost his kingdom, and grew old as a
private citizen in exile.

9. After this, Philip lost an eye to an arrow while he was besieging the
town of Methone, but, even so, he soon stormed the town and took it.®’

10. He went on to conquer by force almost all of Greece which he had
already enmeshed in his scheming; for while each Greek city wanted to
assume supreme power, they all lost their power one by one, and rushed
without restraint to their common doom. Einally, when they were defeated
and enslaved, they realised what each of them had lost individually had also
perished for them all. 11. Eor Philip observed their mad machinations as
if he were sat on a watchtower and, a skilled artist in treachery, by always
helping the weaker side, fostered the disputes which are the kindling of
wars, and then conquered the victors and vanquished alike.

12. What gave him the opportunity to gain domination over all of
Greece was the arrogant way the Thebans used their dominant position.
Eor on defeating the Lacedaemonians and the Phoceans and exhausting the
resources of these two through their killing and plundering, at the common

64 Philip assumed power in 357 BC, deposing Amyntas IV.

65 This is an eiTor taken from Justin, 7.6.7. In fact, Philip captured Larissa in 352 BC, after
his campaigns in Illyricum.

66 Philip married Olympias in 357 BC. Aruba, normally spelt Arybbas, was in fact Olympi-
as’s uncle. Molossia lies in modem Albania.

67 In 354 BC. Methone is the modern Methoni in the Greek province of Pieria. Orosius
suppresses Justin’s comment, 7.6.15, that the wound made Philip no less eager for the fray
and did not increase his vindictiveness in victory when he behaved with moderation. Such
comments would not, of course, ht with Orosius’s picture of Philip as an out-and-out tyrant.

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council of Greece they then burdened them with such a great fine that
they were unable to pay and forced to take refuge in arms once more.®*

13. So the Phoceans under the command of Philomelus and bolstered by
assistance from Lacedaemonia and Athens, joined battle and routed their
enemy, capturing the Thebans’ camp. A second battle followed where, amid
heavy losses on both sides, Philomelus was killed. The Phoceans then made
Oenomaus their commander in his place.®

14. At this point the Thebans and Thessalians did not hold a levy of their
citizens, but of their own free will asked King Philip of Macedonia, whom
they had previous taken pains to repel as an enemy, to be their leader. Battle
was joined, the Phoceans were killed almost to a man and victory went to
Philip.

15. But the Athenians, on hearing the outcome of the battle, followed the
same plan that they had previously employed during the Persian invasion
and occupied the pass of Thermopylae in order to stop Philip from marching
into Greece.

16. So Philip, seeing that he was barred from entering Greece by the
fortification of Thermopylae, turned the war he had prepared against his
enemies on his allies, invading as an enemy and cruelly plundering those
cities that had just made him their commander and who opened their gates
ready to praise and embrace him. 17. Completely setting aside any notion
of duty towards an ally, he sold all their women and children at auction and
destroyed and sacked all their temples - though if the gods were angered by
this, he was never defeated for 25 years.’”

18. After this, he crossed into Cappadocia and waged war there with
equal perfidy. He captured the neighbouring kings through trickery, put
them to death, and brought all Cappadocia under Macedonian rule.’'

19. After inflicting this slaughter, arson, and rapine on cities allied to
him, he turned to committing parricide against his brothers. He feared his
siblings whom his stepmother had borne to his father as they were co-heirs
of the kingdom and so set out to kill them. 20. After he had killed one, the

68 Orosius has elided two events. He is refening to the fine imposed on the Phoceans at the
Amphyctionic Council of 356 BC, but the condemnation of Sparta dates to 383 BC.

69 The Battle of Neum, the modem Tithorea, fought in 354 BC. Justin, 8.1.14, gives the
name of the new commander as Onomarchus. Orosius is referring to the so-called Sacred War
of 356-346 BC.

70 Orosius cannot resist indulging in anti-pagan sarcasm here. To do this, he has inverted
Justin’s reasoning, as Justin, 8.1.8-8.2.4, presents the Phoceans’ sufferings as punishment for
their previous sacrilege at the temple of Apollo at Delphi.

71 Orosius has confused Cappadocia with Thrace, see Justin, 8.3.6.

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other two fled to Olynthus. Philip soon marched on this most ancient and
prosperous town and filled it with blood and slaughter, emptying it of its
men and riches. He then dragged out his brothers and brutally executed
them.’'^

21. After this, elated by the destruction of his allies and the murder of
his brothers, he began to think that he would be allowed to do anything he
planned. He attacked the gold-producing regions in Thessaly and the silver
mines in Thrace and, so as not to leave any law or custom inviolate, he took
control of the sea and indulged in piracy too, sending his fleet out in all
directions.

22. Moreover, when two brothers who were kings in Thrace and in
dispute about the borders of their kingdom agreed to chose him as their
arbitrator, Philip, with his usual cunning, came to give judgment with his
army marshalled as if he were coming to battle and deprived the unsus¬
pecting youths of their lives and kingdom.’^

23. The Athenians, who had repelled Philip’s previous incursion by
fortifying Thermopylae, sought peace with him of their own free will and
by doing so drew their treacherous enemy’s attention to the slack state of
their guard over the pass,’"^ 24. while the rest of the Greek cities willingly
subjected themselves to foreign domination under the pretence of making a
peace-treaty so that they had more free time to indulge in civil war. 25. Above
all, it was the Thessalians and Boeotians who asked Philip to come to be
their leader against the Phoceans and take the command of the war they had
begun. The Phoceans, on the other hand, with the support of the Athenians
and Lacedaemonians, were working hard by prayers and payments to halt
the war or gain a respite from it. 26. Philip secretly promised different
things to each side. He assured the Phoceans on oath that he would make
peace and pardon them, but gave a pledge to the Thessalians that he would
soon come with his army. He also forbade both sides to prepare for war.
27. Philip therefore marshalled his forces, marched safely into the pass of
Thermopylae, occupying and fortifying it with garrisons at key points.

28. It was then that not only the Phoceans, but all of Greece first realised
that they had been taken prisoner. Philip immediately broke faith with the
Phoceans and, trampling his oath underfoot, ripped them apart. He then
ravaged towns and lands of all of them so bloodily while he was there that

72 The three sons of Amyntas by Gygaea, his second wife. Archelaus was murdered in 359
BC, the other two brothers in 348 BC.

73 The sons of Berisades. Philip took their land in 346 BC.

74 The Peace of Philocrates, 346 BC.

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he was feared even in his absence.

29. When he returned to his kingdom, like a shepherd who moves his
flocks at times round his summer, and at times round his winter, pastures,
he transplanted at whim populations and cities to whatever places he
thought should be filled with, or from whatever places he thought should be
emptied of, people. 30. Everywhere woeful sights met the eye along with
the harshest kind of woes - the suffering of destruction without invasion,
enslavement without war, exile without charge, defeat without a victor. 31.
Amid the barbs of these injustices, despondency spread and crushed them.
Their misery was increased by their pretence that it did not exist, and the
more it increased, the less able they were to speak of it, fearing that their
tears be taken as arrogant signs of rebellion.

32. Philip tore some peoples from their homes and settled them on the
borders of his enemies. Others he set down on the furthest-flung frontiers of
his kingdom. Yet others whose power he envied, he divided up and added to
the cities which he had emptied of their population, doing this to stop them
having the strength that it was thought they had. 33. In this way, having
first destroyed its freedom, he cut up the once glorious, flourishing body of
Greece into small bleeding chunks.

13 ’^

1. When he had done this to some of the cities of Greece, while crushing
them all by terror, he worked out from the booty which he had got from
a few of them the wealth of them all and came to the conclusion that to
devastate them all equally at a useful profit, it would be necessary to gain
possession of a maritime city. He judged that the noble city of Byzantium
was the most suitable for his purposes, as it could be a base for both land
and sea operations. When the town resisted, he immediately besieged it.’^

2. This town of Byzantium was founded by Pausanias, the king of the
Spartans,^’ and afterwards enlarged by the Christian emperor Constantine
and named Constantinople. Now it is the glorious seat of imperial power
and the capital of the entire East.

75 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 9.1-3. The sententia at the end
is drawn from Justin, 9.3.11.

76 The siege took place in 340-339 BC. Orosius suppresses the fact that prior to this Philip
had chosen Perinthus as a base and besieged it in vain.

77 Orosius has copied this en'or from Justin, 9.1.3. Pausanias governed Byzantium from
477 to 470 BC, but the town was founded from Megara in c. 660 BC.

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3. Philip, after a long and futile siege, turned to piracy to recover
through theft the money he had lost in the siege. He captured 170 ships full
of merchandise and sold them piecemeal.’* This was the way he replenished
to a small degree his desperate poverty. 4. In order to go plundering and
besiege the town at the same time, he divided his army up. He himself set
out with his bravest men and captured many cities in the Chersonese, ruining
their peoples and stealing their riches. He then crossed over to Scythia with
his son Alexander, intending to plunder it too.

5. At that time, Ateas was the king of the Scythians. When he was hard
pressed in a war with the Histriani,’^ he asked Philip for help using the
Apollonians*'’ as intermediaries, but when the Histrian king died and he was
freed from the fear of war and the need for allies, he dissolved the treaty that
he had made with Philip.

6. Philip raised the siege of Byzantium and turned all his attention to war
with Scythia. When battle was joined, although the Scythians outnumbered
him and proved the more courageous, Philip still defeated them by trick¬
ery.*' 7. In this battle, 20,000 Scythian women and children were captured
and a great number of cattle driven off, but no gold or silver was found. This
was what hrst gave rise to the belief that Scythia is a poor country. 20,000
thoroughbred mares were sent to Macedonia to breed stock there.

8. The Treballi*’ came out to fight Philip as he was withdrawing. In the
battle that followed, Philip was wounded in the thigh: an enemy weapon
passing through his body and killing his horse. Everyone thought he had
been killed and so fled, abandoning their booty. After this, there was a small
pause while he convalesced and recovered from his wound in peace, 9. but
as soon as he had recovered, he declared war on the Athenians. They were
placed in such dire straits that they enlisted their one-time enemies, the
Lacedaemonians, as their allies and wearied every city in Greece with their
ambassadors, asking that Greece might face the foe of all with an army drawn
from all. Some cities did join Athens, but fear of war dragged others over
to Philip’s side. 10. When battle was joined, although the Athenians were

78 A reference to the Athenian grain fleet returning from the Black Sea which Philip
captured in 340 BC.

79 (H)istria is located on the Black Sea coast of Romania.

80 Apollonia is the modem Pojani in Albania.

81 Ateas, normally spelt Atheas, held land in the Dobruja. The Histriani were the people
living by the Ister, i.e. the Danube. Philip defeated and killed Ateas in 339 BC. His ‘trickery’
was a stratagem for dealing with Scythian horse archers that was much admired in antiquity,
see Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.8.14.

82 A people based around Nis in modem Serbia.

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far superior in numbers of troops, they were defeated by battle-hardened
courage of the Macedonians.

11. The outcome of the battle shows us that it was infinitely worse than
all the wars they had fought before - for on that day there came an end for
all of Greece to the glory of the empire she had conquered and to her ancient
liberty.®^

1484

1. Afterwards, Philip exploited his victory in the bloodiest of fashions at
Thebes and Sparta. He sent some of the cities’ leaders to the executioner’s
axe, others he drove into exile, and he conhscated the wealth of all of them.

2. He restored those who had been recently exiled by their fellow-citizens to
their homelands and out of these exiles chose 300 to be judges and rulers so
that they, assuaging their past sufferings with a new lease of power, would
not allow these unhappily oppressed peoples a breath of a hope of liberty.*®

3. Moreover, after a great military levy had been held over all of Greece
to strengthen the king’s arrangements,*^ he marshalled 200,000 infantry
and 15,000 cavalry besides the Macedonian army and a countless host of
barbarians, whom he intended to send into Asia on an expedition against
the Persians. 4. He chose three generals, namely Parmenion, Amyntas,
and Attains, to go as a vanguard against the Persians. While the above-
mentioned troops from Greece were mustering, he decided to marry his
daughter Cleopatra to Alexander - the brother of his wife Olympias, who
was later killed by the Sabines in Lucania*’ - whom he had decided to make
king of Epirus as a reward for the buggery he had inflicted on him.

5. It is said that when Philip was asked the day before he was killed
what was the best end for which a man could hope, he replied that the best
one was that which could come suddenly and swiftly by the sword from an
unexpected quarter to a brave man who was reigning in peace after winning
glory through his courage, while he still suffered from no bodily illness or
ill-repute. This end soon befell the man himself:

83 The Battle of Chaeronea, 338 BC.

84 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 9.5-9.6.5.

85 These sanctions are drawn from Justin, 9.5, but there apply to Thebes alone. Orosius
suppresses Justin’s, 9.5.1-2, comments that Philip dealt with each town on its merits and that
Athens was treated mercifully, Justin, 9.4.4-5.

86 A garbled reference to the League of Corinth created by Philip in 337 BC.

87 See 3.12.8.

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6. Not even the angry Gods, to whom he had always paid scant regard
and whose altars, temples, and idols he had destroyed, could stop him from
obtaining that which he thought the most desirable of deaths.®* 7. For when
on the day of the wedding, he was walking to the magnificently produced
games between the two Alexanders, his son and son-in-law, he was waylaid
without his bodyguards in a narrow passage by Pausanias, a young Macedo¬
nian noble, and killed.

8. Now let those for whom the worst calamities suffered by others are
nothing but sweet stories from the past, assert and proclaim at length that
these were the praiseworthy, fortunate deeds of brave men - provided that
they never relate their own troubles, if at times they are ever tormented
by them, with an excessively tearful tale.®^ 9. But if they wish those who
hear about their own complaints to be affected by the same feelings as they
themselves felt when they suffered them, let them first not compare the past
with the present, but one deed with another and, having heard them, give
judgment between the two like arbitrators who have no part in the quarrel.

10. For 25 years the deceit, savagery, and tyranny of this one king
brought about the burning of cities, the devastation of war, the subjugation
of provinces, the slaughter of men, the plundering of property, the rustling
of herds, the sale of dead men’s goods, and the enslavement of the living.

IS'^o

1. These notorious deeds of Philip, engrained as they are in our memory,
would be sufficient examples of man’s misery, even if Alexander had not
been the successor to his kingdom. I will now put off for a short time the
chronological account of Alexander’s wars, or rather of the ills that the
world suffered because of them, in order to note at this point what happened
at Rome during in this period.

2. 426 years after the foundation of the City,^' an infamous disgrace
suffered by Rome certainly made the Caudine Forks celebrated and

88 Orosius appears to have used a stoiy originally told of Caesar (Suetonius, Caesar, 87;
Plutarch, Caesar, 63) and twisted round its natural irony - that the subject predicted his own
imminent demise - into a demonstration of the impotence of the pagan gods.

89 Orosius reverts to his attack that his opponents, while ignoring the great sufferings of
the past, magnify those of the present.

90 This material in this chapter is drawn, heavily abbreviated, from Livy, 9.15-16.
Livy follows the comments about Alexander with a lengthy comparison, 9.17-19, between
Alexander and Rome in which Rome emerges as superior. This is suppressed by Orosius.

91 The incident of the Caudine Forks is normally dated to 433 AUC/321 BC.

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famous.^^ In the war that had preceded this debacle, 20,000 Samnites had
been killed when they came to battle with Fabius, the Master of Horse.^^
After this, the Samnites, acting with greater caution and a better-equipped
army, occupied the Caudine Forks. 3. Here, after their army had trapped
consuls Veturius and Postumius^'^ and all the Roman troops with them in this
pass, their commander Pontius was so sure of his victory that he thought
he should ask his father whether he ought to kill the men he had trapped
or free them, now they had been defeated - he chose to let them live, but
in disgrace. 4. For it was common knowledge that the Romans had often
been defeated and slain in the past, but had never been captured or could be
forced into total surrender.

5. So the Samnites after their victory, stripped the entire Roman army,
which had been so disgracefully captured, of their arms and even of their
clothing - allowing each man only a loin cloth to cover the shameful parts
of his body - and forced them under the yoke into slavery, forming them up
by ranks in a great procession. 6. They kept 600 Roman knights as hostages,
and sent back the consuls laden only with shame and with nothing else to
show for themselves.

7. But why should I try to underline with my words the stigma of that
most terrible of treaties,®^ when I would have preferred to keep silent about
it? Today, the Romans, if they had, after their defeat, kept to the conditions
of the treaty which they made with the Samnites in the way they now require
those defeated by them to keep to their treaty obligations, would have either
vanished entirely or been the Samnites’ slaves.

8. But the following year,^® the Romans broke the pact they had made
with the Samnites and forced them to wage war. This war was started at the
insistence of the consul Papirius®’ and caused great slaughter on both sides.

9. One side fought driven on by anger at their recent humiliation, the other
by the glory of their last victory. Finally, the Romans, stubborn to the death.

92 The location of the Caudine Forks is disputed. Traditionally the pass has been identified
with the Arienzo-Arpaia valley. See the discussion in Salmon (1967) 225-27.

93 Q. Fabius Ambustus. A dictator’s deputy was given this title. The dictator at the time
was A. Cornelius Cossus.

94 T Veturius Calvinus and Sp. Postumius Albinus, consuls in 321 BC.

95 Foedus (treaty) foedum (adjective meaning foul). This play on words is drawn from
Augustine, City of God, 3.17.

96 In fact, the war was not renewed by Rome until six years later at the end of 316 BC.

97 L. Papirius Murgilanus Cursor. Papirius was consul on five occasions, once in 320 BC,
which may be the source of Orosius’s error as to when the war was renewed, but also in 315
BC which is the consulate referred to here.

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were victorious. They did not stop slaughtering or being slaughtered until,
after defeating the Samnites and capturing their commander, they repaid
them by forcing them under the yoke.®* 10. This same Papirius went on to
storm and capture Satricum, driving out its Samnite garrison.^®

He was at that time regarded by the Romans as such a mighty warrior
that when it was rumoured that Alexander the Great had decided to return
from the East first to take Africa by force and then cross over into Italy, the
Romans thought that out of all the other capable commanders whom they
had at that time in the state, he would have been the best man able to resist
Alexander’s onslaught.™

16 '“'

1. 426 years after the foundation of the City, Alexander succeeded to the
throne of his father Philip.He gave the first proof of his spirit and courage
by swiftly suppressing a rebellion of the Greeks. The ringleader in urging
them to break away from the Macedonians’ empire was Demosthenes who
had been bribed with Persian gold.'"^ 2. Alexander abandoned his war
against the Athenians when they recanted, and even freed them from the
fear of being fined. He then massacred the Thebans after destroying their
town, auctioned what remained of them into slavery, and imposed tribute
on the rest of the towns in Achaea and Thessaly. Soon afterwards, he moved
the theatre of war to Illyricum and Thrace and subdued them."’"' 3. Then, as
he was about to set off on his Persian expedition, he killed all his nearest
male relations.

His army was composed of 32,000 infantry, 4,500 cavalry, and 180
ships.'”® It is debatable which should be thought more amazing: that he

98 After the Battle of Luceria.

99 The modern Borgo le Ferriere. In fact, it was Q. Fabius Rullianus who captured the
town, see Salmon (1967) 234 n.l.

100 This sentiment is drawn from Livy, 9.16.19.

101 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 11.2.1—11.

102 Orosius’s chronology is awry here - Alexander came to power in 418 AUCI336 BC.
Orosius wants to link the disaster of the Caudine Forks to what he sees as the disaster of
Alexander’s accession to power.

103 Orosius’s source for this allegation is Justin, 11.2.7, but they were also made in Demos¬
thenes’ own day; see Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon {In Ctesiphon), 156, 173, 209.

104 This campaign in fact preceded the rebellion in Greece. Orosius has followed the error
he found in Justin, 11.9.

105 These figures agree with Justin, 1.6.2, except that Justin has 182 ships.

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conquered the entire East with such a small band, or that he dared to set
out on such an enterprise in the first place

4. In his first encounter with King Darius,'”’ there were 600,000 Persians
in the battle line. These were vanquished as much by Alexander’s skill as by
being turned to flight by the Macedonians ’ courage. A great slaughter of the
Persians ensued. One hundred and twenty of Alexander’s cavalry and only
nine of his infantry lost their lives.

5. After this, he besieged, assaulted, and captured the Phrygian town of
Gordies which is now usually called Sardis, and allowed it to be sacked.'®
When he was told that Darius was advancing on him with a large force,
fearing the enclosed nature of the place in which he found himself, he
crossed the Taurus mountains with amazing swiftness and arrived at Tarsus,
having covered 500 stades in a single day."” There, while he was sweating
with the heat, he jumped into the freezing waters of the Cydnus,"' grew stiff
with the cold, and, as his sinews contracted, came close to death.

6. Meanwhile, Darius deployed his 300,000 infantry and 100,000 cavalry
into line of battle."’ This enemy host moved even Alexander, especially
when he considered his own small numbers, although from his previous
triumph over 600,000 of the enemy with this same small number of men, he
had learnt not only not to be afraid of battle, but even to have hopes of victory.

7. After the two armies stood within a spear’s throw of one another, the
men were eagerly waiting for the signal for battle, and the two generals had
rushed back and forth sharpening their enthusiasm in all manner of ways,
both sides joined battle in high spirits. 8. In it, both kings, Alexander and
Darius, were wounded. For a long time the battle hung in the balance, until
finally Darius fled and then the Persians were slaughtered.^^^ 9. On this
field, 80,000 infantrymen""' and 10,000 cavalrymen were slaughtered, and
another 40,000 were captured. On the Macedonian side 130 infantry and

106 Taken verbatim from Justin, 11.6.3.

107 Darius III (336-330 BC).

108 The Battle of Granicus, 334 BC. The italicised passage is taken almost verbatim from
Justin, 11.6.11-12.

109 This false identification appears to be Orosius’s own. Gordies is Gordium, the modem
Yassihiiyuk in Turkey. Ancient Sardis lies just to the south of Sart Mahmut, also in Turkey. The
incident took place in 333 BC.

110 Around 57 miles.

111 The modern Tarsus Cayi in Turkey.

112 Justin, 11.9.1, gives the number of Darius’s infantry as 400,000.

113 This sentence is taken verbatim from Justin, 11.9.9.

114 Justin has 61,000.

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150 cavalry fell. A great quantity of gold and other riches were discovered
in the Persian camp. Among those captured there were Darius’ mother,
his wife, who was also his sister, and two of his daughters.^^^ 10. When
Darius, even after offering half his kingdom, was unahle to ransom them,
he gathered together for a third time all the might of Persia along with the
help he could obtain from his allies, and renewed the war.

11. But while Darius was doing this, Alexander despatched Parmenion
with a force to attack the Persian fleet and he himself went to Syria. There
out of the many kings who came to meet him of their own free will wearing
fillets on their heads,"® he made alliances with some, deposed others, and
yet others he executed. He subdued and captured the ancient and prosperous
city of Tyre which resisted him, placing its hopes on support from its
kinsmen in Carthage.'" 12. Then his insatiable fury carried him to Cilicia,
Rhodes, and Egypt.

Erom there he went on to the temple of Jupiter Hammon"* in order to
erase the shame of the doubts over who had been his father and the disgrace
of his mother’s adultery by concocting a lie which fitted the occasion. 13.
Eor, according to what their historians say,"^ he summoned the priest of
the shrine and secretly advised him of answers that he wished to hear when
he pretended to consult the oracle. So Alexander was convinced, and has
shown us, that since the gods are both deaf and dumb, that it is either in the
power of the priest to devise whatever answer he wishes or in the credu¬
lity of the petitioner to hear what he prefers to hear.'^" 14. On his return
from Hammon to fight his third campaign against the Persians, he founded
Alexandria-in-Egypt.

115 The italicised passage is taken verbatim, save for one synonym for ‘infantry’, from
Justin, 11.9.10-12. Orosius suppresses Justin’s comment on Alexander’s chivalrous behaviour
towards Darius’s womenfolk. The battle is the Battle of Issus, 333 BC.

116 i.e. they came as suppliants.

117 The siege of Tyre occurred in the August of 332 BC. Carthage was a colonial founda¬
tion of Tyre.

118 At the oasis of Siwah.

119 i.e. pagan historians.

120 Justin, 11.11, has the story that Alexander sent envoys to give the oracle the correct
replies. Orosius’s version is sharper in its anti-pagan rhetoric, yet oddly does not specihcally
state that the oracle told Alexander that he was the son of Ammon, not Philip, which is found
in Justin’s version. Nor does Orosius use Justin’s comments that it was after this incident that
Alexander’s arrogance became intolerable.

121 i.e. the modern Alexandria. Alexandria was probably founded before Alexander’s
journey to Siwah, see Arrian, Anabasis, 3.1.5; Plutarch, Alexander, 26. Orosius is following
Justin’s, 9.11.13, error.

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17122

1. Darius, who had lost any hope of making peace, faced Alexander on
his return from Egypt in battle at Tarsus'^^ with 404,000 infantry'^'* and
100,000 cavalry. Nor was there any delaying the fighting: 2. all rushed at
their enemies’ swords in a blind frenzy. The Macedonians were spurred
on by the fact that they had beaten their enemy so often before, while the
Persians preferred death to defeat. 3. Rarely was so much blood spilt in
a battle. When Darius saw his men being defeated, he prepared to die in
battle, but bowed to the persuasion of his people and fled. 4. This battle was
the downfall of the strength and kingdoms of Asia: all the East fell into the
hands of the Macedonian Empire, and the confidence of the Persians was
destroyed to such a degree in this war that afterwards none dared rebel. So the
Persians after holding an empire for so many years, now patiently accepted
the yoke of slavery. 5. Alexander spent 34 whole days cataloguing the
booty he found in the camp, then he attacked Persepolis, the capital of the
Persian kingdom, a most famous city, full of wealth which had come from
around the whole world.

6. When he heard that Darius’s relatives had imprisoned him and bound
him in golden fetters, he decided to give chase. So, after ordering his army
to follow him, he himself set off with 6,000 cavalry. He found the king
abandoned by the wayside: he had been stabbed many times and was
breathing his last. 7. In an empty gesture of pity, Alexander ordered that
the dead king be taken to, and buried in, the tomb of his ancestors. He kept
Darius’s mother and wife and even, I should say, his little daughters in cruel
captivity.'^’

8. In the midst of such a multitude of evils, it is difficult to speak with
credibility. In three battles and as many years, 1,500,000 infantry and cavalry

122 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 11.12; 11.14—15.

123 The Battle of Gaugamela, fought on 1 October 331 BC.

124 Justin, 11.12.5, has 400,000 infantry.

125 Orosius takes these sentiments, which are vital to his interpretation of history, from
Justin, 1.14.6-7. Justin makes the collapse of Persia personal, speaking of Alexander seizing
the Persians’ kingdom and attributes the lack of subsequent rebellions to Alexander’s luck
rather than Persian demoralisation.

126 Persepolis is now known as Takht-e-Jamshid and lies some 30 miles north-east of
Shiraz in Southern Iran. Oddly, Orosius makes no mention of Alexander’s destruction of the
city.

127 This sharp attack on Alexander’s behaviour is Orosius’s own and contrasts with Justin’s
account, 11.15, which portrays Alexander as moved by Darius’s fate and acting in a chivalrous
fashion towards his womenfolk.

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perished,'^* and they came from that kingdom and those peoples where not
long before more than 1,900,000 lives are said to have been wasted. 9. Apart
from this tragedy, in those same three years a great number of cities in Asia
were crushed, all of Syria laid waste. Tyre uprooted, Cilicia stripped bare,
Cappadocia enslaved, and Egypt placed in bondage. In addition, the island
of Rhodes, fearing enslavement, surrendered of her own free will and most
of the provinces which lie under the Taurus mountains and Mount Taurus
itself, conquered and defeated, received the yoke they had spurned for so
long.

18129

1. In case any one should think that it was only the East that was enslaved
by the might of Alexander, or merely Italy that was exhausted by Roman
restlessness, we must remember that at that time war was being waged in
Greece by Hagis, the king of the Spartans,'^® in Lucania by Alexander, the
king of Epirus,'^' and in Scythia, by the prefect Zopyrion.'^^ 2. Out of these,
Hagis the Lacedaemonian roused all Greece to rebel with him, met Antipat¬
er’s powerful army in battle, and fell amid great slaughter on both sides.

3. Alexander was defeated in Italy by the Bruttii and Lucanians after many
costly battles, while attempting to build an empire in the West to rival that
of Alexander the Great. His corpse was then ransomed for burial. 4. The
prefect of the Euxine Sea, Zopyrion, mustered an army 30,000 strong and
dared to wage war on the Scythians. His army was slaughtered to the last
man, and he himself was wiped out along with all his troops.'^®

5. After the death of Darius, Alexander the Great subdued the Hyrcan-
ians and Mandi.'^® While he was fighting there, he was approached along
with 300 women by the shameless Amazon Halestris, who is sometimes

128 Orosius has correctly added his casualty figures for the battles of Granicus, Issus, and
Gaugamala.

129 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 12.1-6. Justin is critical of
Alexander, but Orosius’s tone is much more strident in this respect.

130 Agism, 338-331 BC.

131 Alexander I of Molossia, see 3.11.1.

132 These three examples are taken from Justin, 12.1.4.

133 The Battle of Megalopolis, 330 BC.

134 Alexander died at the Battle of Pandosia in 331 BC, see 3.11.1.

135 The expedition perhaps took place in 325 BC.

136 Alexander made this expedition towards the Caspian Sea in 330 BC. The Mandi are
Justin’s, 12.3.4, Mardii, who are mentioned as a nomadic Persian tribe by Herodotus 1.125.

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called Minothea and who had been aroused by the hope of bearing children
by him.*^’ 6. After this, he fought the Parthians. They resisted him for a
long time and he almost destroyed them before he finally conquered them.
7. Then he subdued the Drangae, Euergetae, Parimae, Parapameni, Adaspii,
and the rest of the peoples who live at the foot of the Caucasus. Here he built
Alexandria-on-the-Tanais.

8. Nor was his cruelty towards his own people any less than his rage
against his enemies, as is shown by the killing of his cousin Amyntas, the
murder of his stepmother and brothers, the butchering of Parmenion and
Philotas, and the eradication of Attains, Eurylochus, Pausanias, and a host
of leading Macedonians. Even Clitus, an old man and an old friend, was
shamefully killed. 9. At a banquet, relying on his friendship with the king,
he opposed the king who was saying that his deeds were greater than those
of Philip, by reminiscing about Alexander’s father. He was run through with
a hunting spear by the king who had taken offence for no reason, and, as he
died, covered the whole banquet with his blood.

10. But Alexander, whose taste for human blood, either of his enemies
or even of his friends, was never slaked, always thirsted for fresh gore.
11. So he rushed to war and, after hard fighting, received the surrender
of the Choarasmae and the Dahae,*'"’ a people never previously defeated
in war. He killed the philosopher Callisthenes, who had been his fellow-
pupil under Aristotle, along with many other leading men because they
would not honour him as a god and abandon their normal way of greeting
him.''^'

137 The story is drawn from Justin, 12.3.5-6. Orosius suppresses Justin’s comments that
the Amazons provoked universal admiration and that Alexander stayed among them for 13
days during which time Halestris, spelt Thalestris/Minythyia by Justin, got her way.

138 The Tanais is the modern Syr-Darya. For a discussion of the geographical problems
here see Bosworth (1993) 109. The town is normally known as Alexandria Eschate, the modem
Khudjand/Khudzhand in Tajikistan. Alexander campaigned in central Asia between 330-327
BC.

139 This notorious incident occurred at Maracanda, the modem Samarcand. Orosius
suppresses Justin’s comments that Alexander bitterly regretted killing Clitus.

140 See 1.2.43. Both tribes were Saca nomads living in Sogdiana - the region lying to the
north of Oxus now comprising parts of Tadjikistan and Uzbekistan.

141 A reference to Alexander’s attempt to introduce the Persian practice of proscynesis into
his court and the ‘conspiracy of the pages’. The philosopher and historian Callisthenes whom
Alexander had invited to accompany him as his official historian was executed in 327 BC.

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19142

1. After this, he made for India in order to make the Ocean and the further¬
most East the borders of his empire. He came to the city of Nyssa*'*^ and
stormed the Daedalian mountains and the kingdom of Queen Cleophyle,
who, after surrendering, bought her kingdom back by sleeping with him.''*''

2. After Alexander had crossed and subjugated India, he came to an
astoundingly rugged and high crag where many peoples had taken refuge.
He learnt that an earthquake had stopped Hercules from storming the crag
and so, urged on by a wish to outdo the deeds of Hercules, after great effort
and danger he seized the rock and received the surrender of all the peoples
on it.'"^^

3. Then he fought a bloody battle with Porus, the bravest of the Indian
kings, in which Alexander met Porus face to face.''*® His horse was killed
and he was thrown to the ground, but his bodyguard rallied to him and saved
him from the threat of death; Porus, after being wounded many times, was
captured. 4. As a testament to Porus’s bravery, Alexander restored him to
his kingdom and founded two cities, Nicaea and Bucephala, there, ordering
the latter to be so named after his horse.

Then the Macedonians took the Adrestae, Cattheni, Praesidae, and
Gangaridae by storm, slaughtering their armies. 5. When they came up
against Cohdes,*'*® they fought a battle against 200,000 enemy horsemen.
Worn out by their years, sick at heart, and physically weary, after they had,
with some difficulty, won the fight, they founded a camp of more than usual

142 This chapter draws heavily on, and abbreviates, Justin, 12.7.4-12.10.4.

143 The location of this city, whose inhabitants claimed to be worshippers of Bacchus, is
unknown.

144 For the Daedalian mountains see Tarn (1984) 249-50, though his conclusions about
Cretan mercenaries seem fanciful. Justin, 12.7.9, gives the queen’s name as Cleophis, she ruled
over the Assacenes who lived in the Swat valley.

145 The rock of Aornos, the modem Pir-Sar in the Indus Valley. Orosius manages to engage
two targets here: Alexander for his an'ogance and the pagans whose gods who are shown to
be inferior to mortals.

146 Porus (d. 318 BC) was ruler of the Pauravas who lived between the Jhelum and Chenab
rivers.

147 The Battle of the Hydaspes, the modern Jhelum, in the Punjab, fought in 326 BC.

148 Nicaea is probably the modern Jalalpur. The site of Bucephala, founded on the battle¬
field of the Hydaspes, is unknown.

149 Justin, 12.8.10, calls the king Sophis. He is to be identified with the Indian king
Saubhuti, who stmck Graecising coins under the name of Sophytes. His realm probably lay in
the northern Punjab.

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magnificence as a memorial to their victory.'®'’

6. Then Alexander advanced to the river Agesis,'®' along which he
voyaged down to the Ocean. Here he subdued the Gesonae'®^ and Sibi
whose founder was Hercules.'®® He sailed hence against the Adri'®'' and
Subagri'®® who were waiting for him with an army of 80,000 infantry and
60,000 cavalry. 7. Battle was joined. The hght was bloody and lay in the
balance for a long time, but eventually gave the Macedonians a victory that
almost turned into tragedy. For when he had routed the enemy, Alexander
led his army to their city. He was the first to scale its walls and, thinking
that the city was deserted, leapt down into it alone. 8. When the enemy had
surrounded him on all sides with murderous intent, incredible to relate,
neither the numbers of his foe, nor the great violence of their weapons,
nor the huge shout that went up from his assailants frightened him, and,
though he was alone, he killed and routed many thousands of them. 9. But
when he realised that he was being overcome by the multitude that poured
round him,^^^ guarding his back by putting it to the wall, he easily beat off
his opponents until his entire army broke down the walls and burst into
the city, making for where he was in danger and towards the shouts of his
enemies. 10. In this battle, Alexander was shot under the breast by an arrow,
but raising himself on one knee, he fought on until he had killed the man by
whom he had been wounded.

11. After this, he embarked on his ships, cruised along the shores of the
Ocean and came to the city ruled by King Ambira.'®’ In storming this city,
he lost a great part of his army to the enemy’s arrows which were dipped
in poison. But after a herb revealed to him in a dream and which, on being

150 Orosius has garbled Justin, 12.8.12, where Alexander’s troops complain that their
lives will hardly be long enough for them to return to Macedonia. The camp was built at the
furthest point east which Alexander had reached. Alexander built twelve altars here to the
twelve Olympian gods. Perhaps Orosius has suppressed this information because he did not
wish to glorify paganism, but, as Justin makes no mention of the altars, it is more likely he was
simply unaware of their existence.

151 Probably the river Chenab.

152 Justin, 12.9.2, calls this tribe the Agensonae.

153 The Sibae of Strabo, 15.1.8-9. They are also found in Nonnus, Dionysiaca, 26.218.
The deduction that they were a creation of Hercules was derived from the fact that they wore
skins and carried clubs. They may in fact have been a caste group rather than a tribe.

154 Justin, 12.9.3, calls this tribe the Mandri.

155 Perhaps a garbled form of Ksudraka, a tribe who lived between the Indus and Hydaspes.

156 Taken verbatim from Justin, 12.9.8-9.

157 Justin, 12.10.2, speaks of King Ambus. Orosius has either misread his manuscript and
elided the two words {Ambi Regis) or had a corrupt manuscript at this point.

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given to them in a potion, cured his remaining wounded, he went on to
storm and take the town.

1. After turning the corner, so to speak,'®* Alexander entered the river Indus
from the Ocean and swiftly returned to Babylon. 2. Here terrified ambassa¬
dors from all the provinces of the entire world were waiting for him. There
were ambassadors from the Carthaginians, all the cities of Africa, and also
from the Spaniards, Gauls, Sicily, and Sardinia, besides others from most of
Italy. 3. So great was the fear of a leader who ruled the far east among the
peoples of the uttermost west that you would have seen delegations drawn
from all those parts of the world to which you would hardly have believed
that rumours of Alexander’s existence could have penetrated.'®®

4. Alexander then died in Babylon while still thirsting for blood with a
lust that was cruelly punished - for he drank poison that had been treacher¬
ously prepared by a servant.'*®

5. O the hardness of man’s mind, and his ever-inhuman heart! Have I,
who recount these matters to show how throughout the ages one different
calamity has followed another, never filled my eyes with tears while telling
of such evil times, when the whole world trembled either from death or
the fear of death? Have I never been sick at heart? Have I never, when
reflecting on these things, seeing them as the common lot of those who live,
made my ancestors’ sorrows my own? 6. When I tell, if I may mention my
own life, how I first saw barbarians from unknown lands, how I escaped
from their hostility, flattered those in power, guarded myself against those I
could not trust, outwitted those who lay in wait for me, 7. and finally, how,
when they pursued me by sea with their rocks and spears, and had almost
laid hands upon me, I escaped them when I was covered by a fog which
suddenly arose, I would want all those listening to me to be moved to tears
and would silently grieve for those who did not grieve for me, considering
their hardness to be that of those who do not believe in what they themselves
have not suffered.

158 The ‘meta’. This is a metaphor taken from chariot racing and borrowed from Justin,
12.10.5, where it is made more explicit.

159 The account of the ambassadors is drawn from Justin, 12.13, though the contrast
between east and west is Orosius’s own. See 6.21.19.

160 Alexander died in 323 BC. Orosius’s judgment of him is completely different to that
of Justin, 12.16, who describes him as ‘a man endowed with mental capacities beyond those
of mere mortal ability’.

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8. The Spanish and the Morini**’' came to Babylon to grovel before
Alexander, and of their own free will sought out this bloodstained warlord
through Assyria and India in order to stop him becoming their enemy,
scouring the ends of the earth and coming to know in their misfortune both
oceans.'®^ But the memory of this violent necessity that was forced upon
them has either been forgotten altogether, or is little remembered because
it happened long ago. 9. So do we think that we shall set in our memory
forever the fact that some fugitive thief managed to plunder one corner of
the world, when for the most part it remained free of him?'®^ It is as if an
Indian or Assyrian asked the Goths and Sueves, not to mention the reverse,
for peace, or even a Spaniard who is suffering their attacks. 10. But if
Alexander’s life and times are judged to be more worthy of praise because
of the courage with which he conquered the whole world than worthy of
contempt because of the chaos into which he plunged it, even more men
will be found who think the present day worthy of praise because there have
been many victories and because they consider the sufferings of others to be
their own good fortune.

11. But someone will say, ‘But those men are the enemies of the Roman
World’.'*'* The reply to this is that this is how Alexander seemed to the
whole East, and how the Romans too seemed to others, when they made war
on unknown, peaceful peoples.'**

‘But Alexander and Rome strove to obtain a kingdom, while the barbar¬
ians fight to overthrow them’, will come the counter.

However, the destruction wrought by an enemy and the order imposed
by a victor are two separate things. 12. Alexander and Rome first made
war on those whom afterwards they brought under their laws. Similarly,
the barbarians too are now throwing into confusion as their enemies those
whom, if they conquer them, and, may God not allow this to come to pass,
they will endeavour to rule after their own fashion, and thus those whom

161 A Gallic tribe found opposite the English Channel and so on the edge of the Ocean.
Orosius is here drawing on Virgil, Aeneid, 8.727—28, to make his following point about both
the Oceans. Given the context, and Orosius’s homeland, we should assume that the Spaniards
are from Galicia.

162 The image conjured up is one of anti-magi seeking an anti-Christ.

163 This is a reference to Alaric’s sack of Rome in AD 410. Orosius is arguing that sub
specie historiae this is a trivial event.

164 These men’ are the barbarians. Orosius here uses the abstract term 'Romania’ to mark
out not just Rome’s empire but the cultural baggage that went with it. See 7.43.5.

165 See 5.1.1-13. There is perhaps also an echo of Ninus of Assyria/Babylon, see 1.4.1
and 2.3.6.

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we now regard as our most brutal enemies, will be considered as great kings
by posterity.

13. Now whatever name is given to these deeds, be it courage or
suffering, they are fewer in number now compared with those in times gone
by. In either case we compare favourably with Alexander and the Persians,
for if this is now to be called courage, then that of the enemy is less, if it is
to be called suffering, then that of Rome is less.

21166

1. 450 years after the foundation of the City, when Eabius Maximus was
consul for the fifth, and Decius Mus for the fourth, time,*'’’ the four most
powerful and flourishing peoples of Italy made a treaty and united their
armies into one, the Etruscans, Umbrians, Samnites, and Gauls combining
their forces in a plot to try to destroy Rome.

2. The Romans’ spirits trembled at the prospect of this war and their
confidence was shaken. They did not dare to put all their hope in their own
strength, but divided the enemy by trickery, thinking it safer to fight more
small battles than a few large-scale ones. 3. So, after they had sent some of
their men to ravage the enemies’ fields in Umbria and Etruria, and in this
way forced the Etruscan and Umbrian armies to retreat to protect their terri¬
tory, they made haste to engage the Samnites and Gauls. 4. In this battle the
Romans were pushed back under the onslaught of the Gauls and Decius,
the consul, was killed.*'’® However, Eabius eventually won the victory after
the death of a great number of Decius’s troops.***^ 5. In this battle, it is
said that 40,000 Samnites and Gauls were killed, while only 7,000 Romans
perished, and these came from the division of Decius who was killed in the
battle. 6. Livy states that apart from the Etruscans and Umbrians whom the
Romans had cunningly drawn out of the war, the Gauls and the Samnites

166 This chapter is drawn, in a very heavily abbreviated form, from Livy, 10.27—31.

167 Normally dated to 459 At/C/295 BC.

168 The Battle of Sentium (neai* the modem Ancona), 295 BC. For a detailed discussion
of the problems involved with our ancient accounts of this battle, see Harris (1971) 69-74.

169 Orosius suppresses the fact that Mus, like his father, died through performing the
religious rite of devotio, see Livy, 10.28.12-18, and that Fabius, on learning of Decius’s death,
pledged that he would build a temple to Jupiter Victor and give the god the spoils of battle if
he triumphed, Livy, 10.29.14. Devotio was the ritual dedication of oneself to the gods of the
underworld. The enemy by killing one so dedicated would bring the wrath of those Gods and
thus destmction upon themselves.

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had 140,330 infantry, 47,000 cavalry, and 1,000 waggoneers in line of battle
against the Romans.'™

7. But - as has often been pointed out, the Romans’ high hopes have
always been completely checked from all directions, either by having their
harmony at home disrupted by war abroad or their foreign adventures made
worse by plague at home - 8. a plague in the city made this sorrowful and
bloodstained victory all the worse, and funeral corteges of the dead defiled
their triumphal processions. No one could be persuaded to rejoice in the
victory, since the entire city was grieving for either the sick or the dead.

22 '’'

1 . In the following year, the Samnites renewed the war, defeated the Romans,
and forced them to flee back to their camp. 2 . After this, the Samnites took
new heart and a new form of dress - for they covered their arms and tunics
in silver'™ - and marched out to battle prepared to conquer or die.

3. Although the keepers of the sacred chickens and their empty prophe¬
cies forbade him to take the field, the consul Papirius'™ and his army was
sent out against them. He laughed at the chicken-keepers and in the same
way as he had steadfastly begun the campaign, brought it to a successful
conclusion.'™ 4 . For it is said that in the battle 12,000 of the enemy were

170 This is Orosius’s first direct mention of Livy. He has, however, read a poor manuscript,
or badly garbled Livy’s account. Livy, 10.29.17-19, gives the casualties as 25,000 for Rome’s
opponents and 8,700 Romans, the latter comprising the 7,000 of Decius’s army mentioned by
Orosius and an additional 1,700 from Fabius’s troops. Orosius’s numbers of those engaged
also differs from those given by Livy, 10.30.5, who states that there were 600,000 infantry,
46,000 cavalry, and 1,000 waggons. We must suppose that Orosius was unaware of Diodoius
Siculus’s, 21.6.1, account drawn from Duris of Samos that gives the Etiuscan and Gallic losses
as 100,000.

171 This chapter draws in a heavily abbreviated form on Livy, 10.28-42, 11, and 12.

172 A rather garbled reference to the ‘linen legion’ of the Samnites (Livy, 10.28). The
Samnites equipped this legion with bright white linen tunics. Orosius has taken his information
from the comments of Papirius (Livy, 10.39.13), but fails to note that this speech itself states
that the Samnites had equipped a legion like this as early as 310 BC (see also Livy, 9.40 which
Orosius either did not read or has forgotten). Oddly, Orosius also suppresses the account of
the lurid pagan rituals that accompanied the creation of the legion which would have served
his anti-pagan cause.

173 L. Papirius Cursor, consul in 461 Af/C/293 BC.

174 Orosius has created a tale about the worthlessness of pagan prophecy here, but is being
a little disingenuous. Livy’s, 10.40.4—5 and 10.40.10-12, report from which Orosius draws
his comments is more ambiguous. Here the chickens give a bad omen, but their keepers send
a false positive omen to Papirius. When members of his army reported this to him, Papirius

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killed and 3,000 taken prisoner.'’^

But his truly praiseworthy victory which empty prophecies had been
unable to prevent was ruined by the sudden onset of disease. 5. For such a
great and unbearable plague then took hold of the city that in their efforts to
put an end to it by any means possible, they decided to consult the Sibylline
Books and brought over the infamous, vile snake of Epidaurus along with
the stone of Aesculapius - as if plague had not died down in the past, or
would not arise again in the future.'^®

6. The following year the consul Fabius Gurges'’^ fought, but badly,
against the Samnites - he lost his army and fled back to the city.'^* 7. When
the Senate was debating whether to remove him from office, his father,
Fabius Maximus,while condemning the cowardice of his son, freely
offered to serve as his own son’s lieutenant, if he were given the chance to
purge his disgrace and renew the war.

8. After Maximus had obtained his request and battle was joined, he
suddenly saw his son, the consul, fighting with Pontius, the leader of the
Samnites, and cut off and threatened by the weapons of the enemy. This
dutiful'*® old man then charged into the midst of the fray on his horse. 9. His
actions roused up the Romans who pressed on along all the battle line, until
they destroyed the enemy’s army, defeating and capturing its leader Pontius.
10 . 20,000 Samnites were killed in this battle, and 4,000 were captured
along with their king. The disappearance of their captured leader Anally
brought to a close the Samnite War that had dragged the Romans through

declared that he preferred to believe the positive omen, but nevertheless ordered the chicken-
keepers to be stationed in the front line.

175 The battle was fought near Aquilonia. Livy, 10.42.5, gives the Samnite casualties as
12,340 dead and 3,870 taken prisoner.

176 Orosius has a clear message here, namely that paganism does not work, but he has
garbled his data. He appears to have confused the cult of Aesculapius that was introduced
to Rome in 291 BC (Valerius Maximus, 1.8.2) and was associated with snakes, with that of
Cybele and the arrival of the betyl (an uncarved sacred stone) of the Magna Mater in Rome
in 206 BC. Livy, 10.47.7, notes that nothing could be done about the summoning in the year
of Papirius’s consulate and only a one-day formal supplication, or supplicatio, to the god was
performed. Augustine, City of God, 3.17, also mentions the incident.

177 Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges, consul in 462 AUC!292 BC.

178 The ordering of these events by Orosius is highly suggestive - the Romans ignore
the instructions of pagan omens under Papirius and are triumphant, then follow them and are
defeated. Orosius, either out of guile or careless enthusiasm, has changed their order to bring
this about. Livy, Per. 11, places Gurges’ defeat before the summoning of Aesculapius.

179 Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus.

180 ‘Pius’ here in the sense of loyalty to one’s family.

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many a disaster for 49 years.

11 . The next year, war was waged against the Sahines under the consul
Curius.'*' The consul himself revealed how many thousands of men had
been killed and how many captured, for when he wished to announce in the
Senate the amount of Sabine land he had seized and the great number people
he had captured, the numbers defeated him.

12 . 463 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of
Dolabella and Domitius,'*^ the Lucanians, Bruttii, and Samnites made an
alliance with the Etruscans and Senonian Gauls in an attempt to renew the
war against Rome. Rome sent envoys to urge the Gauls not to join in.

13 . After the Gauls killed these, the praetor Caecilius was despatched
with an army to avenge the envoys’ deaths and put down the enemies’
rising, but he was defeated and killed by the Gauls and Etruscans. 14 .
Seven military tribunes were also killed in this battle, many noble men were
slaughtered, and the 30,000 Roman soldiers laid low in the war.'®^

15 . And so whenever the Gauls’ spirits became inflamed, Rome lost all.
For this reason while we suffer at present from an incursion of Goths, we
ought to remember all the more those attacks of the Gauls.

23185

1 . But now I shall call myself back in order to go through the wars that the
leaders of the Macedonians fought among themselves, since these happened
at the same time as the Romans suffered from the disasters I have just
described, and relate how on the death of Alexander, they drew lots for the
various provinces and then destroyed themselves by infighting.

2. I seem to look down on the tempestuous times of these men as if I
were to look down by night on a vast camp from the top of a mountain, and

181 Orosius has missed a year — the consul is M’. Curius Dentatus, consul in 464 At/C/290
BC.

182 Orosius’s chronology is eight yeai's awry, he is referring to P. Cornelius Dolabella and
Gn. Domitius Calvinus Maximus, consuls in 471 AUC /283 BC.

183 Augustine, City of God, 3.17, mentions this battle in his list of times when pagan gods
gave no aid to Rome. Significantly, both Orosius and Augustine suppress the fact that soon
after this battle the Etruscans were defeated at the Battle of Lake Vadimon by the consul P.
Cornelius Dolabella (Fionas, 1.8). A further string of Roman victories in 282 and 281 BC are
equally suppressed.

184 Again, Orosius wishes to press home to his readers that the troubles of the present are
negligible compared to those of the past.

185 The material in this chapter is taken and radically condensed from Justin, books 10-17.

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see nothing on the expanse of that great plain but innumerable specks of
fire.'®® 3. At this time the terrible fires of war suddenly blazed forth though
all the kingdom of Macedonia: namely all of Asia, most of Europe, and the
greater part of Libya. 4 . After these conflagrations had devastated the places
where they had flared up, they threw the rest of the world into confusion
through, as it were, a thick, black smoke of frightening rumours. 5. But it
will be useless to go through the wars and slaughter that overtook so many
kings and kingdoms, unless I first list these realms and their rulers.

6. After Alexander had crushed the trembling world beneath his sword
for twelve years, his generals tore it asunder for another fourteen and, like
lion-cubs eager to tear apart the rich prey brought down by a great lion,
destroyed one another by quarrelling among themselves in their eagerness
for the prize.

7 . The first lot allocated Egypt and parts of Africa and Arabia to Ptolemy.
Laomedon of Mitylene^^^obtained the province of Syria which lay on Ptole¬
my’s borders; Philotas, Cilici; Philof^^Illyria. 8. Atropatus^^^ was put in
charge of Greater, Perdiccas’s father-in-law,^^ Lesser Media. The people of
Susa were assigned to Scynus^^^ and Greater Phrygia to Antigonus, the son
of Philip. 9 . Nearchus^^^ was allotted Lycia and Pamphylia; Cassander,^^*
Caria; and Menander, Lydia. Leonnatus^^^ received Lesser Phrygia. 10 .
Thrace and the area around the Euxine Sea were given to Lysimachus,

186 Perhaps an allusion to the watch fire scene at the end of Homer, Iliad, 8.562-63.
Homer still featured in the liberal education of the Latin West, see Augustine, Confessions, 14.
However, there is no firm evidence that Orosius knew any Greek and the relevant section of
the llias Latina appears rather to draw onAeneid, 9.159-60. It is likely therefore that, if this is
an allusion to Homer, it is bom not of first-hand acquaintance with the text, but via a common
cliche of the day.

187 Arrian, Indica, 18.4, states that Laomedon hailed from Amphipolis. He was a trierai'ch
in Alexander’s fleet and one of his hetaeroi.

188 A trierarch in Alexander’s Indian fleet. In section 23, he is called Python.

189 A Persian general who defected to Alexander after the Battle of Gaugamela.

190 Orosius has misread his source, Justin, 13.4.13, here. Justin reads ‘Pytho the Illyrian
was put in charge of Greater Media, and Atropas, the father-in-law of Perdiccas, in charge of
Lesser Armenia’.

191 The satrap of Susa at Alexander’s death.

192 Antigonus Monophthalmus, 382-301 BC.

193 Nearchus of Crete, Alexander’s admiral and author of a lost history of Alexander that
is unlikely to have been known to Orosius.

194 Antipater’s son.

195 The commander of Alexander’s Lydian mercenaries.

196 One of Alexander’s ‘Old Guard’ from the days of Philip II.

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Cappadocia along with Paphlagonia to Eumenesd^ Command of the
army was given up to Seleucusf^^ the son of Antiochus; and Cassander,
the son of Antipater, was put in charge of the royal retinue and bodyguard.
11 . In outer Bactria and the regions of India, the prefects who had been
previously appointed by Alexander remained in place. Taxiles ruled the
Seres who live between the Hydaspes and Indus rivers. 12 . Python,
the son of Agenor, was sent out to rule the colonies established in India.
Oxyarches^^ received the Parapameni who dwell at the end of the Caucasus
mountains, and the Arachossians and Chedrosians were decreed to belong
to Sibyrtes.^°^ 13 . Statanor drew the Dancheans and Areans; Amyntas,^'^
the Atriani. Itacanor the Scythaean^^^ obtained the Sogdians; Philip,^'^ the
Parthians; Fratafemes,^°^ the Hyrcanians; Tleptolemus,^^ the Armenians;
Peucestes,^°^the Persians; Archous Pellasos,™ the Babylonians; and Arche-
laus, Mesopotamia.^^

14 . Now the cause and origin of these wars was a letter of King Alexander
in which he ordered that all exiles be restored to their homelands and set
at liberty.^'® The rulers of the Greek states, fearing that when these exiles
regained their freedom they would plot their revenge, consequently rebelled
against the kingdom of the Macedonians.

15 . The first to do so were the Athenians who gathered together an army
of 30,000 men and 200 ships and waged war against Antipater who had been

197 Eumenes of Cardia, Philip IPs private secretary.

198 Seleucus I Nicator, 358-281 BC.

199 The satrap of India.

200 A Sogdian king and father of Alexander’s wife, Roxanne.

201 More usually Sibyrtius. Sibyrtes had made satrap of these areas by Alexander; see
Arrian, Anabasis, 6.27.1, and Quintus Cuitius, 9.10.20.

202 Justin, 13.4.20, has ‘Bactrians’ for Atrians. This must surely be correct and suggests
that Orosius was using a poor copy of Justin. There is a slight confusion in verbs here between
Orosius and Justin, which, while not changing the sense of the phrase, also suggests that
Orosius’s manuscript was corrupt at this point.

203 Justin, 13.4.23, assigns the Sogdians to Staganor of Soli.

204 The satrap of Bactria.

205 A Persian satrap who defected to Alexander.

206 Justin, 13.4.23, has Carmenians instead of Armenians. As Tleptolemus was the satrap
of Carmania, it appears that Orosius’s version of Justin was corrupt at this point.

207 The satrap of Persia.

208 Another example of Orosius’s corrupt version of Justin, 13.4.23. The text reads ‘Archon
of Pella’.

209 The above, italicised list, apait from a small number of very slight variants, is taken
verbatim from Justin, 13.4.10-13.4.24.

210 The so-called Edict of Susa, 324 BC.

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allotted Greece. Through the work of the orator Demosthenes, they forged
an alliance with Sicyon, Argos, Corinth, and the rest of the Greek states
and besieged Antipater.^" 16. It was there that their leader, Leosthenes,
was killed by a javelin thrown from the walls, but the Athenians attacked
Leonatus who was bringing help to Antipater, destroyed his force and killed
him.

17. Perdiccas waged war on and defeated Ariaratus, the king of Cappa¬
docia.^'^ But his victory brought him nothing except wounds and dangers,
for before he broke into their city, all the Cappadocians set their homes on
fire and cast themselves and their belongings into the flames.

18. After this, war broke out between Antigonus and Perdiccas, and
many provinces and islands were tom asunder for either granting them help,
or for refusing it. 19. After pondering for a long time whether the theatre
of war should be moved to Macedonia or to fight in Asia, Perdiccas finally
marched on Egypt with a great army. So Macedonia, divided into two by its
fractious leaders, turned its arms on its own vitals. 20. Ptolemy marshalled
his Egyptian forces and his troops from Gyrene and prepared to go to war
with Perdiccas.

While this was happening, Neoptolemus and Eumenes brought their
quarrel to the sword in a bloody encounter. 21. Neoptolemus was defeated
and fled to Antipater whom he urged to crush Eumenes while he was off
his guard. Eumenes, however, had anticipated this, and trapped those
who would have trapped him. 22. In this war, Polyperchon was killed and
Neoptolemus and Eumenes wounded one another. But while Neoptolemus
died, Eumenes emerged victorious.

23. Perdiccas came to battle with Ptolemy in a bitter flght, lost his army,
and was killed.^''' Eumenes, Python,^'^along with Illyrius,^'® and Alcetas,
Perdiccas’s brother, were proclaimed public enemies by the Macedonians,
and Antigonus was placed in charge of the war against them.^'^

211 At Lamia in Thessaly, hence the war is known as the Lamian War, 323-322 BC.

212 In fact, the satrap of the area. This campaign took place in 322 BC.

213 Orosius follows Justin, 13.6.1-2, in confusing the capture of Cappadocia with Perdic¬
cas’s later attack on Psidia where the holocaust here attributed to Cappadocia took place in
the town of Isaura.

214 In fact, Perdiccas was murdered by his own mutinous troops at the Nile Delta in 320
BC. Orosius appears to have embroidered Justin, 13.8.10, to create his battle.

215 This is the Thilo’ of section 7.

216 Orosius has followed an error in his manuscript of Justin, 13.8.10, which has made
the adjective ‘Illyrian’ a noun, producing Python and Illyrius, rather than Python the Illyrian.

217 This was done at the Conference of Triparadisius in 321 BC.

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24 . So Eumenes and Antigonus, after marshalling enormous armies,
came to battle.^'* Eumenes was defeated and fled to an extremely well-forti¬
fied stronghold,^*® whence he sent ambassadors to Antipater, who was at that
time the most powerful of the warlords, asking for his aid. Antigonus was
so terrified on learning this, that he lifted his siege. 25 . Even so Eumenes
had no firm hope or guaranteed safety and so, as a last resort, he asked the
‘Silver Shields’, who were so-called because of their silvered arms - that
is, the troops who served under Alexander - to come to his aid. 26 . They
listened to their commander’s battle plan with contempt,^^** were defeated
by Antigonus, had their camp seized, and so lost, along with their wives
and children, everything they had gained while serving with Alexander.^^*

27 . Afterwards to their shame, they sent envoys asking the victor to
return to them what they had lost. Antigonus promised that if they handed
Eumenes over to him in chains that he would return their possessions. 28 .
Seduced by this hope of recovering their possessions, the Silver Shields
performed a disgraceful act of treachery and, while captives themselves,
took their commander, under whose standards they had marched but a short
while before, captive and brought him loaded with chains to Antigonus.
Soon afterwards they were dispersed in deep disgrace among Antigonus’s
troops.

29 . Meanwhile, Eurydice, the wife of the Macedonian king Arridaeus,^^^
committed a great number of crimes in her husband’s name through the
agency of Cassander with whom she had formed an outrageous open liaison.
She had promoted him through every distinguished rank to the height of
power and he, through a woman’s lust, inflicted suffering on many Greek
towns.

30 . At this juncture, Olympias, the mother of King Alexander,came,
on Polypercon’s advice, from Epirus to Macedonia, followed by Aecides,
the king of Molossia. When she was stopped from entering the kingdom
by Eurydice, as she had the support of the Macedonians, she ordered King
Arridaeus and Eurydice to be killed.

218 The Battle of Orcynium, 320 BC.

219 The fortress of Nora in the northern Taurus mountains on the borders of Cappadocia.

220 We are told that, as Macedonians, they were unhappy to be commanded by the Greek
Eumenes; see Bosworth (1978).

221 The Battle of Gabiene in 316 BC.

222 Alexander’s half-brother.

223 i.e. Alexander the Great.

224 The two were killed towards the end of 317 BC.

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31. However, Olympias too immediately paid the price that she deserved
for her cruelty. Eor while she was engineering, with a woman’s lack of
self-control, the deaths of many leading men, she learnt that Cassander was
approaching, and, since she did not trust the Macedonians, fled with her
daughter-in-law, Roxa,^^^ and her grandson, Hercules, to the city of Pydna,^^®

32. where she was immediately captured and put to death by Cassander.
The son of Alexander the GreaE^* was sent with his mother to the citadel of
Amphipolis to be kept under guard there.

33. After the deaths of Perdiccas, Alcetas, Polyperchon, and of the rest
of the generals of the opposing faction, whom it would be too lengthy to list
by name, the wars between Alexander’s successors seemed to be coming to
an end. 34. But then Antigonus in his lust for power speciously argued that
the king’s son, Hercules, must be freed from his prison by war. 35. When
Ptolemy and Cassander learnt of this, they formed an alliance with Lysima-
chus and Seleucus and made vigorous preparations to fight both by land and
sea. In the ensuing war Antigonus and his son, Demetrius, were defeated.^^^

36. Cassander who had taken part in Ptolemy’s victory, was returning to
Apollonia when he fell in with the Avieniatae.^^® This people had abandoned
their native soil after suffering from an intolerable plague of frogs and
mice, and were seeking a new home and in the meantime were peaceably
disposed. 37. Cassander, knowing that they were a sizeable and coura¬
geous race, made an alliance with them and settled them on the furthermost
borders of Macedonia in the fear that otherwise they would be forced by
necessity to invade and wage war on Macedonia itself.

38. Then, since Alexander’s son, Hercules, was already fourteen,
Cassander who was afraid that everyone would chose Hercules as their
legitimate ruler, saw to it that he was put to death in secret along with his
mother.^^'

225 Normally Roxane, see Justin, 14.6.2.

226 Alexander’s son by his Persian concubine, Barsine. Orosius, following Justin, 14.6,
appeal's to have confused Hercules with Alexander IV, see sections 32 and 34 immediately
below. Pydna is near Katerini in modern Greece.

227 At the beginning of 316 BC.

228 Not Hercules, but Alexander IV, his son by Roxane.

229 Ptolemy defeated Demetrius near Gaza in 312 BC.

230 Justin, 15.2.1, calls this tribe the Audariatae.

231 Orosius has confused (or perhaps elided into one group) Alexander IV and Roxane
with Hercules and Barsine. The former were murdered in 310 BC, the latter in 309 BC. While
Justin, 15.2.3-5, Orosius’s source here, is confused and inverts the order of the murders, he
does make clear the fact that there were four, not two individuals involved.

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39. Ptolemy fought another naval battle with Demetrius and, after being
defeated with the loss of almost his entire fleet and army, fled back to
Egypt.^^^ 40. Elated by this victory, Antigonus decreed that he and his son
should be called kings. All the others followed his example and usurped
royal titles and protocol for themselves.

41. When Ptolemy, Cassander, and the rest of the leaders of the other
faction realised that Antigonus was betraying them one by one, encour¬
aging one another with letters, they arranged a time and place to meet and
prepared to wage a joint war against him with their combined forces. 42.
Cassander, who was ensnared in wars against his neighbours, sent in his
stead Lysimachus, the best of all his generals, and a large body of men
to help his allies.43. Seleucus too came down from Greater Asia and
became a new enemy for Antigonus.

This Seleucus had waged many wars throughout the East with the allies
of the Macedonian kingdom.^^'* 44. His first move was to storm and capture
Babylon. He then crushed a new Bactrian uprising and 45. crossed over into
India which, after the death of Alexander, had killed his prefects, removing,
as it were, and throwing off the yoke from their-^^ necks. A certain Andro-
cottus was their leader in this attempt to regain their liberty.Afterwards
Androcottus behaved cruelly towards his fellow citizens, making those
whom he had previously saved from foreign rule slaves of his own. 46.
Seleucus fought many hard wars against him. Finally, after consolidating
his kingdom and making peace, he retired from the country.

47. When Ptolemy and his allies had joined forces, the battle began.
It was all the more ruinous given the great amount of preparation for it,
for almost the entire strength of the Macedonian kingdom came crashing
down. 48. In this war Antigonus was killed;^^* however, the end of this war
was only the beginning of another - for the victors could not agree about
the spoils and divided into two parties. 49. Seleucus allied himself with

232 The Battle of Cypriot Salamis in 306 BC.

233 In302BC.

234 Orosius here has shortened Justin’s, 15.4.10, phrase, ‘He fought many wars in the east
after the division of the Kingdom of Macedon amongst the allies’. It is difficult here not to see
Orosius as guilty of the worst sort of undergraduate plagiarism as the removal of phrase ‘after
the division’ completely changes the sense of Justin’s words.

235 Orosius has forgotten that he is talking about an abstract ‘India’, not Indians.

236 Justin, 15.4.13, has Sandracottus. This is a mutation of the name of the Maurya king
Chandragupta, c. 321-c. 298 BC. See Rapson (1935) ch. 17 and Bhargava (1996).

237 In 303 BC.

238 At the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC.

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Demetrius; Ptolemy with Lysimachus; while the deceased Cassander was
succeeded hy his son, Philip.^^® And so in this way war came new-born once
more to Macedonia.

50. Antipater ran through his own mother, Thessalonice, who was
Cassander’s wife, with his own hand, even though she pleaded piteously
for her life.^'"’ 51. His brother, Alexander, was tricked, and then killed, by
Demetrius whose help he had sought while he was fighting Antipater in
order to avenge his mother. 52. Lysimachus was unable to fight Demetius as
he was involved in a bitter war against the Thracian king Dorus.^'*'

53. Elated by taking Greece and all Macedonia, Demetrius was inclined
to invade Asia. 54. However, Ptolemy, Seleucus, and Lysimachus, after
having learnt from the last conflict how powerful an alliance could make
them, made a treaty once again, united their forces, and took the war to
Demetrius in Europe. 55. Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus,^'^^ joined them as a
colleague and ally in the war, hoping that Demetrius could be driven from
Macedonia. Nor was his hope in vain, for after Demetrius’s army had been
destroyed and he had been forced to flee, Pyrrhus invaded Macedonia.

56. Then Lysimachus killed his son-in-law, Antipater,^'*^ who was
plotting against him, and also slew his own son, Agathocles, whom he hated
with an unnatural loathing.

57. At this time, the town of Lysimachia was levelled by a terrifying
earthquake and cruelly became a tomb for its afflicted people.

58. Lysimachus, who had stained himself with many acts of parricide,
was deserted by all his allies, who defected to Seleucus and urged the king,
already so inclined through his envy of the other’s kingdom, to wage war
on Lysimachus. 59. The affair was a disgraceful spectacle. The two kings,
Lysimachus, aged 74, and Seleucus, aged 77, trying to snatch their kingdoms

239 Philip IV, who died soon after, leaving his mother Thessalonice as regent; see Justin,
16.1.1. Orosius’s suppression of this fact produces a rather confused account.

240 In 294 BC.

241 Justin, 16.1.10, calls the king Dromichaetis.

242 King of Epirus 306-302, then displaced, but returning as king in 297 and subsequently
ruling until his death in 272. For his wars in Italy, see 4.1.5^.2.7.

243 Pyrrhus’s invasion and Antipater’s murder occurred in 287 BC.

244 In 283 BC. The sentiment about the degree of hatred shown for Agathocles is taken
from Justin 17.1.4.

245 The modem Ecsemil at the northern end of the Dardanelles peninsula. It was founded
by Lysimachus in 309 BC. Justin, 17.1.10, notes its destruction as a portent of Lysimachus’s
demise, a notion which Orosius suppresses.

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from one another, stood in the front line dressed in armour. 60 . This was
indeed the last battle between Alexander’s fellow-soldiers, but it was one
specially set aside as an example of man’s wretchedness. 61 . For, although
34 of Alexander’s generals were already dead and they were the sole rulers
of the world, they gave no thought to the tightly narrow limits of their old
age and lives, but rather considered that the limits of the whole world were
too narrow for their empire. 62 . In this battle,Lysimachus, the last of his
line - he had already lost or killed fifteen children prior to the conflict - was
killed and so brought the Macedonian War to a close.

63 . But Seleucus did not rejoice in his great victory with impunity, as
neither did he, after his 77 years, find peace in a natural death, but ended a
life which he had the misfortune to be snatched from him, almost, one might
say, before his time. 64 . For he was trapped and killed at the instigation of
Ptolemy whose daughter had been married to Lysimachus.^'*®

65 . These then were the dealings between families and friends found
among parents, their children, brothers, and allies. Such was the weight of
respect due to gods and men that hung upon them. 66. Let men, who now
know that it is only through the coming of the One True Christian Faith and
the mediation of sworn oaths that they live with their enemies and suffer no
harm, blush indeed to remember these past times. 67 . This is proved beyond
all doubt because now they do not as in the past stand and pledge their troth
with the slaughter of a sowf‘^'^ but rather the Gospels, on which their oath
is sworn, ensure a fidelity among the Romans and barbarians when they
jointly call on their Creator and Lord, which in the past natural affection
could not guarantee even between fathers and their sons.

68. Now let the close of the Macedonian War also be the close of this
book, above all because after this point the wars of Pyrrhus begin and the
Punic wars soon follow on.

246 The ages of the two kings are taken from Justin, 17.1.10. In fact, Lysimachus was 80
at the time of the battle.

247 The Battle of Curopedium fought near Manissa in Turkey in 281 BC.

248 Seleucus was stabbed while disembarking from a boat by Ptolemy Ceraunus less than
a year after the death of Lysimachus.

249 YiYgiX, Aeneid, 8.641.

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BOOK FOUR

PREFACE

1 . Virgil tells us that Aeneas, after his perils and his men’s shipwreck, spoke
the following words while consoling his surviving companions:

An hour will come, with pleasure to relate, your sorrows past as benefits

of fate.'

2. This saying, carefully devised on this one occasion, always carries with
it three very distinct senses. First: that the worse events in the past were in
reality, the more gratifying they are to relate later. Second: that it is always
believed that the future will be better, as our desires for it are brought about
by discontent with the present 3. And third: that while troubles are present,
no just comparison of our sufferings in any respect is possible, because
the troubles of the present, however trivial they may be, cause much more
grievance than those of the past or future, even if they are said to be great,
because these are altogether absent when they are being discussed.

4. For example, if a man who is troubled by fleas at night and kept awake
by them, happens to remember some other sleepless nights he once endured
when gripped by a burning fever, he will, without a doubt, be more troubled
by his present circumstances than the memory of those in the past. 5. But
although everyone can feel like this in the grip of circumstances, surely
there is no one who while being plagued by fleas would declare that they
are a worse affliction than fever, or agree that it is worse to be kept awake
while in good health than not to be able to go to sleep when at death’s door?

6. Since this is the case, I grant that our precious moaners think that the
troubles they feel, and by which we are now from time to time chastened as
is expedient, are severe, but I will not concur with their assertion that they
are the more severe when compared to those of the past.

7. In the same way, if someone were to get out of his soft bed in a
comfortable bedroom one morning and, on going outside and seeing pools

1 YugW, Aeneid, 1.203

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frozen over after an icy night and plants white with hoarfrost, exclaim, when
confronted this unexpected sight, ‘It’s cold today’, I would not think his
attitude at all reprehensible, for he would be speaking as men normally
do and with the common sense of these words. 8. But if he were to rush
panic-stricken back to his bedroom, cover himself with his blankets or hide
himself all the more deeply under the bed-clothes, shouting out that there
had never been such cold as this not even in the Apennines when Hannibal
was cut off by the snow and lost his elephants, horses, and most of his army,^
9.1 would not endure his talking such puerile drivel, but, indeed, would drag
him from under his sheets, the evidence of his idleness, out into the crowd
in a public place, and, having got him out of doors, show him the children
playing in the frost, and because of it enjoying themselves and sweating. 10.
In this way our wordy fuss-pot, corrupted by his delicate upbringing, would
learn that his troubles came not from the violence of his times, but from
his own idleness, and that, when we judge these matters, it is not that his
ancestors endured a small amount of suffering, but rather that he is unable
to endure even a small amount.

11.1 shall demonstrate this more clearly by bringing to mind the disas¬
ters of past times. I shall begin with the war against Pyrrhus, as this is the
correct order. Its cause and origins were as follows:

1 ^

1 . 464 years after the foundation of the City, while Tarentines were sitting
in their theatre, they saw a Roman fleet that happened to be passing their
city and launched an attack on it.'* Only five ships escaped and those with
difficulty. The rest were dragged into the Tarentines’ harbour and destroyed.
The ships’ commanders were butchered,^ everyone of military age killed,
and the remainder of the crews sold into slavery.

2 See 4.14.8 below.

3 Orosius’s main sources here are Florus, 1.13, and Livy, 12-13. However, he has
suppressed Pyrrhus’s comments on the bravery of the Romans for which see Flonis, 1.13.18.

4 This incident is normally dated to 472 AUC, i.e. 282 BC. Orosius omits to mention that
a treaty made between Rome and Tarentum in c. 303 BC forbade Roman ships from sailing
beyond the Lacinian peninsula, near Croton. The vessels attacked by the Tarentines were in
clear breach of this treaty. Rome therefore was the provocateur, not the innocent victim of
violence in this incident as Orosius depicts her.

5 Orosius may be exaggerating here. Livy, Per. 12, speaks of the duovir (a ‘two-man’, one
out of a board of two magistrates) who commanded the fleet being killed rather than the ships’
captains.

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2. The Romans at once sent envoys to Tarentum'’ to complain about the
ill treatment that they had suffered; these were driven away by the Taren-
tines and so returned with insult having been added to injury. Eor these
reasons a great war broke out.

3. After they saw who, and how many, the enemy were who had raised
their cries against them, extreme necessity forced the Romans to arm and
enrol even the proletarians (that is those who were always left in the City to
keep up the number of children^), since any thought about children would
be vain if they did not deal with their immediate circumstances.

4 . The Roman army under the consul Aemilius® invaded the entire
territory of Tarentum. They laid waste to everything with fire and sword,
stormed many towns, and cruelly avenged the arrogant insult that they had
received. 5. The Tarentines were immediately reinforced by contingents
from many of their neighbours, but it was Pyrrhus who gave them the most
help. Because of the great size of his forces and the scope of his strategy,
he took over the running of the war and gave his name to it. 6. In order to
liberate Tarentum which had been founded by Lacedaemon and so was a
blood-brother of the towns of Greece,^ he brought over the entire strength
of Epirus, Thessaly, and Macedonia, and even 20 elephants, being the hrst
to bring this animal, previously unknown to the Romans, into Italy. He
would have been a terrible foe on land or sea, given his men, cavalry, arms,
and beasts,'® and, above all, his own energy and cunning, 7. had he not
been deluded by an ambiguous reply from that emptiest of spirits and lying
slattern, whom they call a great prophet, the Delphic oracle, and come to the
same end as someone who had not consulted it."

8. Battle was first joined between King Pyrrhus and the consul Laevinus'^
at the river Siris by the town of Heraclea in Campania.'^ The day was spent

6 The modern Taranto.

7 Orosius is no doubt drawing this definition from Augustine, City of God, 3.17. The same
etymology is also given by Cicero, On the State {De Republica), 2.23.

8 Q. Aemilius Papus, consul in 282 BC.

9 Tarentum was traditionally founded in 706 BC by the Spartan Phalanthus.

10 i.e. his elephants

11 The oracle’s words are quoted by Augustine, City of God, 3.17, as ‘Aio te, Aecida,
Romanos vincere posse’. This can be read either as T tell you, son of Aeacus, that you are
able to defeat the Romans’ or ‘I tell you, son of Aeacus, that the Romans are able to defeat
you’. Augustine’s source was probably Cicero, On Divination {De Divinatione), 2.56.116,
who dismisses the oracle’s authenticity. The line is normally thought to derive from Ennius’s
Annals, book 6 (Skutsch [1985] fr. 167).

12 P. Valerius Laevinus, consul in 280 BC.

13 The Siris is the modem Sinno and Heraclea, the modem Policoro, a Tarentine colony

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in bitter strife with both sides fixed on death and heedless of flight, 9 . but
when the Romans saw the elephants brought into the fray - animals grim
in appearance, foul to smell, and terrifying in size - they were stunned and
terrified, especially their cavalry, at this new form of warfare and fled in all
directions.*"' 10 . But after Minucius, the chief centurion of the second rank
of the Fourth Legion,'^ used his sword to cut off the hand of the beast as it
stretched it out towards him,"’ and forced it from battle because of the pain
of its wound, making it turn in its rage on its own side who began to panic
and became disordered because of its wild onslaught, night brought the gift
of drawing the battle to a close. 11. Their disgraceful flight betrayed the fact
that the Romans had been defeated; 14,880 of their infantry are said to have
been killed, and 1,310 captured.'*' The figures for the cavalry are 246 killed,
and 802 captured. Twenty-two standards were lost.

12 . Tradition has not handed down the numbers of Pyrrhus’s divers
allies who were lost, since it was not the custom of writers in olden times
to record the number of dead on the victorious side lest the victor’s losses
should mar the glory of his victory, 13 . unless by chance so few fell that
the small number of his losses should increase the admiration and terror
inspired by his prowess. This happened, for example, in Alexander’s first
battle against the Persians, when men say that while almost 400,000 of the
enemy died, only nine infantrymen in his own army perished.'*

14 . However, Pyrrhus himself gave witness to both gods and men about
the disastrous blow that he had suffered in this battle, by setting up a plaque
in the Temple of Jupiter at Tarentum on which he wrote:

Those men who were previously undefeated, great father of Olympus,

These I have defeated in battle and have been defeated by the same.

which in fact lies in Lucania. Orosius has followed the error found in Florus, 1.13.7. The battle
took place in 280 BC.

14 For Pyrrhus’s use of elephants, see Scullard (1974) 101-16.

15 Orosius calls Minucius (called Numucius by Orosius’s source, Florus, 1.13.9) the primus
hastatus. For a full description of this rank, see Vegetius, 2.8. Orosius has misread his source
which attributes Minucius’s action to the second battle with Pyrrhus and is perhaps guilty of
a pretentious, and incorrect, use of a technical term, as Florus only describes Numucius as an
hastatus, or ‘front-ranker’.

16 i.e. the trunk.

17 Eutropius, 2.11, gives no figure for the dead, but says Pyrrhus captured 1,800 Romans.

18 See 3.17.4.

19 These lines are normally attributed to book 6 of Ennius’s Annals (Skutsch [1985] fr.
180), see also Skutsch (1968) 88-92.

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15 . When his allies rebuked him and asked why he said that he had been
defeated when he had triumphed, he is said to have replied, ‘If I triumph like
this again, I shall return to Epirus without a single soldier.’

16 . Meanwhile, the Roman army after its defeat fled secretly from its
camp and came to believe that the terrible disaster of the battle had been
made all worse and aggravated by even more serious portents. 17 . Eor a
storm rose up, as if it too was part of the enemy’s army, and with a terrible
crash from the heavens seized hold of, and blasted with lightning bolts,
a group of foragers who happened to have been sent out in advance of
them. 18 . The whirlwind killed 34 of them, 22 were left half-dead, and the
majority of their pack-animals were killed or captured, so that it was rightly
said that this was not the sign of destruction to come, but an act of destruc¬
tion in its own right.

19 . The second battle between Pyrrhus and the Roman consuls was
fought on the borders of Apulia.^® Here the battle was a disaster for both
sides, but especially for Pyrrhus, and victory fell to Rome. 20 . Eor during
a long period while they fell on each other, resolutely indulging in mutual
slaughter and the outcome of the battle hung in the balance, Pyrrhus was
wounded in the arm and became the first commander to leave the battle.
However, the Roman commander Fabricius was also wounded. 21 . In the
first battle it had been discovered that elephants could be wounded and
forced to flee; in this battle that they could be driven mad by inflicting fire
on their rear, tender quarters and that when they panicked in terror and
rushed around carrying burning howdahs on their backs, they were lethal to
their own side. 22 . 5,000 Romans died in this battle, but 20,000 of Pyrrhus’s
men perished. The king lost 53 standards, the Romans eleven. 23 . Pyrrhus
fell back on Syracuse, broken by the war and after being summoned to the
Sicilian empire on the death of Agathocles, the king of Syracuse.

1 . But the miseries of the Romans did not stop for any peace treaty. The gap
between wars was filled by fhe evils of disease and when wars abroad came
to an end, wrath from heaven fell on them at home. 2 . For when Fabius
Gurges was consul for the second time along with Gains Genucius Clepsina,
a terrible plague fell upon the City and its lands.It afflicted everyone, but

20 The battle was fought near the town of Asculum, the modem Ascoli, in 279 BC.

21 478 At/C/276 BC.

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especially the women and flocks, killing their offspring in their wombs and
destroying the future generation. Strained abortions, putting the mother in
danger, were brought forth in premature births and this happened to such
a degree that it was believed that posterity had been destroyed and that the
race of living things would become defunct because the normal way of
giving birth to the living had vanished.^^

3. Meanwhile, the consul Curius intercepted Pyrrhus on his return from
Sicily^^ and a third battle against the Epirotes was waged through Lucania
in the fields of Anisia.^"' 4. As soon as they came to grips with one another,
Pyrrhus’s troops were thrown into panic by the Romans’ onslaught and got
ready to withdraw, looking for a way to flee from the battle. Pyrrhus then
ordered the elephants to be brought up in support. 5. However, the Romans
were now used to fighting against these beasts and had prepared firebrands
equipped with hooked barbs for gripping, wrapped in tow, and smeared in
pitch. They set light to these, shot them at the animals’ backs and howdahs,
and then easily drove back the beasts which were maddened by the flames,
turning what had been their enemies’ salvation into their annihilation.

6. Men say that the king’s army in this battle was composed of
80,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Out of these, it is recorded that 33,000
were killed^^ and 1,300 taken prisoner. 7. Pyrrhus then left Italy in defeat
in the fifth year after he had arrived. After waging many great wars, he was
seduced by a desire for the kingdom of Sparta and killed when struck by a
rock while in Argos, the wealthiest city in Achaea.^*

8. At the same time at Rome, the vestal virgin Sextilia, after being
accused and found guilty of sexual impurity, was buried alive at the Colline
Gate.^’

3 ^'

1. 475 years after the foundation of the City, the Tarentines, after learning
of the death of Pyrrhus, searched once more for new arms to take up against
the Romans. They despatched envoys to seek aid from the Carthaginians

22 This plague is mentioned by Augustine, City of God, 3.17.

23 275 BC, the consul was M. Curius Dentatus.

24 Near the modem Benevento.

25 Eutropius, 2.14.5, gives the figure of 23,000.

26 Pyn'hus died in 272 BC.

27 In 274 BC; this note is drawn from Livy, 14.

28 Orosius’s source for this section is Livy, 15.

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and received it.^^ 2. Battle was joined and the Romans were victorious. It
was at this time that the Carthaginians, although they were not yet consid¬
ered as enemies, realised that they could be defeated by Rome.

3. In the following year, Rome’s stern nature fell upon a great part of her
own vitals. 4 . Eor when Pyrrhus had just arrived in Italy, the Eighth Legion
lost hope in Rome’s cause and dared to commit a new sort of crime.They
slew all the people of Rhegium who had been placed under their protec¬
tion, and divided up all the booty and the city itself among themselves. 5.
The consul Genucius was ordered to punish this crime on the persons of
these criminal defectors.^' After besieging the town and capturing everyone
within, he rightly executed the non-Roman runaways and bandits, but sent
the Romans, the troops of an entire legion, back to Rome. Here, by the
people’s decree, they were flogged to death and beheaded in the middle of
the forum.^^ 6. On this occasion, although she had killed an entire legion of
her own, Rome thought that she had been triumphant - she who without a
doubt would have been defeated, had she lost this legion in a battle against
the enemy.

1 . 470 years after the foundation of the City,^^ vile, terrible portents were
seen, or news given of them, at Rome. The Temple of Health was destroyed
by a lightning bolt and part of the city wall in the same place was also struck
as they say, ‘from the heavens’. 2. Three wolves entered the city before
dawn carrying a half-eaten corpse and left its scattered limbs in the forum
after being frightened away by men shouting. 3. At Formiae,^'* the entire
city wall was burnt up and destroyed by lightning bolts. 4 . In the fields of

29 This statement is taken from Livy, Per. 14, where we are told a Carthaginian fleet came
to the Tarentines’ aid.

30 Pyrrhus arrived in 280 BC. The eighth legion was composed of Campanians, rather than
Romans proper.

31 L. Genucius Clepsina, consul in 483 AUCIlli BC, though according to the acta trium-
phalia, the triumph for the campaign was given to his fellow consul, Gn. Cornelius Blassius.

32 Orosius takes this figure from Livy. However, Polybius, 1.7.7, states that most of the
legion, mindful of the punishment they would receive, died fighting, leaving just over 300 men
to be executed at Rome.

33 This date is the majority reading of our manuscripts, but it is wrong. If Orosius has the
date of Sempronius Sophus’s consulate correct later in the chapter, the date here should be 485
AC/C/269 BC.

34 The modern Mola de Gaeta.

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Cales,^^ a flame suddenly burst forth as the ground gaped open. It blazed in
a terrible fashion for three days and three nights, and reduced flve iugera^^
of land to ashes, drawing out all the fertile moisture that lay within. This
destroyed, they say, not merely the crops, but even the trees down to their
deepest roots.

5. In the following year, the consul Sempronius led an army out against
the Picentes.^^ When both battle-lines stood within javelin range, the earth
suddenly trembled with a terrible crashing sound, so that each side grew
numb in terror and amazement at this omen. 6. For a long time the stunned
men held back on both sides, knowing that the outcome of the engage¬
ment had been preordained, but finally they roused themselves to charge and
joined battle. 7. This encounter was so heart-rending that it is deservedly
said that the earth had trembled with a horrible-sounding groan because it
was going to receive so much human blood. The few Romans who survived
the battle emerged as the victors.^®

1 . 480 years after the foundation of the City, among many other portents,
blood was seen oozing from the earth and milk dripping from the sky. For
in very many places blood gushed from fountains and milk came down in
drops like rain from the clouds, and these terrible, as they seemed to them,^®
showers inundated the land.

2. At that time the Carthaginians, who had given aid to the Tarentines
against Romans, were reprimanded by ambassadors sent by the Senate and
then added the shameful disgrace of breaking their treaty to the perjury they
had already committed.'^®

3. At this time too, the people of Vulsinii,'*' the richest of the Etruscans,
almost perished because of their decadence. For having made licentiousness

35 The modem Calvi.

36 Around three acres.

37 P. Sempronius Sophus, consul in 486 Af/C/268 BC.

38 Orosius’s source for the battle appears to be Florus, 1.14, or Livy, 15 (the battle is noted
both by Livy, Per. 15, and Eutropius, 2.16, but no details are given). Orosius has suppressed
Florus’s comment that Sempronius appeased the goddess Tellus after the earthquake by
promising to build a temple for her.

39 i.e. the pagan Romans.

40 Orosius is our only source for this embassy which presumably took place in the early
260s.

41 Near the modem Bolsena.

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their way of life, they freed all their slaves regardless, admitting them to
their banquets, and ennobling them through marriage.'*^ 4 . These freedmen,
after they had been given a share in power, began to plot how they might
criminally usurp it all. Eor freed from slavery’s yoke, they were on fire
with a lust for mastery, and now they were free, they cursed their masters
whom they had happily cherished when they were slaves, because they
remembered that they had been their masters. 5. So these freedmen formed
a conspiracy to carry out their crime (their numbers were so great that they
were able to carry out this audacious deed without resistance) and seized
the city, making their class its sole rulers. They then criminally seized the
possessions and wives of their former masters for themselves and banished
their masters, driving them far away. These wretches took themselves off
to Rome as poverty-stricken exiles, where after weeping and relating their
sufferings, they were avenged and restored to power by the stern rule of
Rome."*^

6. 481 years after the foundation of the City, a great plague flared up at
Rome, I am content to mention it in these terms, as I am unable to describe
its horrors in words. 7. If someone asks how long it lasted, its devastation
extended for more than two years; if they ask about the death it brought, the
census is our witness - it does not record the number of men who perished,
but the number who survived; if he asks about the violence with which it
raged, the Sibylline Books bear witness to this, saying that the plague was
brought about by Divine Wrath.

8. But in case anyone is struck by a specious form of quibbling from the
fact that the Sibylline Books say that the gods were angry, while I appear
to have described this episode as the result of Divine Wrath, let him hear
and learn that although the majority of these things are brought about by
incorporeal spirits, they would not come to pass without the consent of
Almighty God.'"'

42 Again, Orosius here shows no hostility towards, and perhaps even support for, the insti¬
tution of slavery.

43 This was done by the consul Fulvius Flaccus in 490 Af/C/264 BC; see Festus, 228L.
Livy, Per. 16, notes that ‘successful actions were earned out against the Vulsini’, but gives no
details; Orosius’s account may preserve some of the sense of the lost text.

44 The ‘specious reasoning’ here is to accuse Orosius of trying to suppress the fact that the
Sibylline Books refer to the pagan gods. Orosius certainly is placed in some difficulties by his
use of the Sibylline Books as evidence, and to escape this accusation is forced into acknowl¬
edging the existence of pagan gods, albeit as demons, rather than adopting his normal attitude
of dismissing them as non-existent. This approach to paganism is also found in Augustine, City
of God, 2.24, with which Orosius would have been familiar.

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9. At this same time, the Vestal Virgin Caparronia was convicted of
defiling herself and died by hanging. Her seducer and the slaves who were
his accomplices were executed.'*^

10. Behold, how many great events we have listed as happening unceas¬
ingly every single year. It was certainly a rarity, in fact almost never the
case, that some tragedy did not occur each year, and this is despite the fact
that the writers of the time, whose main task was to give praise, took care
to leave out a considerable number of disasters 11. in order not to offend
those for whom and about whom their accounts were written, and not to be
seen to terrify rather than educate their listeners with the examples they had
drawn from the past. 12. Moreover, we who live at the very end of these
times have no way of knowing of the sorrows of the Romans, save through
the accounts of those who praised them. 13. Given this fact, we can see how
much must have been deliberately suppressed because of its horrible nature
when so many things of this sort are faintly discernible amid their praises.

646

1. Since the Punic Wars follow on from this point, it is necessary briefly
to say something about Carthage, which was founded by Elissa"^’ 72 years
before the city of Rome, and about the disasters and domestic calamities
it suffered, which have been set out in the works of Pompeius Trogus and
Justin.'**

2. The Carthaginians have always suffered from an innate and particular
evil among themselves, namely civil strife, a misfortune which dictated that
they never enjoyed prosperity abroad or peace at home. 3. When, among
all their other troubles, they also suffered from plague, they resorted to
murder rather than medicine, performing human sacrifices and placing
small children on their altars, something which made even their enemies
pity them.'*®

45 The execution is noted with fewer details by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1752 = 488
AUC. The form of CapaiTonia’s death was not that normally prescribed for Vestals convicted
of unchastity (burial alive) and has therefore been assumed to be suicide; see Bauman (1992).

46 Orosius, as he himself states, has drawn on, and heavily abbreviated, Trogus’s epitome
of Justin (18.3-19 and 21-23.3) for the first 33 sections of this chapter.

47 i.e. Dido.

48 See in particular Justin, 18. Jerome places the foundation of Caithage in A Abr. 1164,
i.e. 100 years before the foundation of Rome.

49 The account of human sacrifice draws very heavily on Justin, 18.6.11-12; the plague
occurred in c. 370 BC.

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4 . 1 do not know what I best ought to say about this form of sacrifice, or
rather sacrilege. If some demons dared to ordain these rites so that human
death should be propitiated with human murder, the Carthaginians ought
to have understood that they were being engaged as agents and assistants
of the plague in order to kill themselves those upon whom it had not taken
hold. 5. For their custom is to offer healthy victims untouched by the plague
with the result that they did not cure diseases, but rather anticipate them.^®
6. So, after the Carthaginians, with the gods against them because
of this infamous kind of sacrifice, according to Pompeius Trogus and Justin,
or, as we clearly know, because their presumption and impiety had angered
God, 7. had fought a long war without success in Sicily, they changed their
theatre of operations to Sardinia where they were defeated after enjoying
even less success.^' Because of this, they ordered that their commander,
Mazeus, and the few soldiers who had survived with him, to be exiled. The
exiles sent envoys who asked for forgiveness, but this was refused. They
then waged war on, and besieged, their own city. 8. It was then that the
exiles’ leader, Mazeus, had his own son, Carthalo, a priest of Hercules,^^
killed. He had come out to meet his father dressed in purple as if to taunt
him, so Mazeus hung him on a cross, just as he was, in his purple, priestly
garb, beneath the eyes of his city.^^ 9. A few days later Mazeus took the city
itself and then, after exercising a bloodstained reign and killing most of the
senators, was himself slain. These things happened at the time when Cyrus
was king in Persia.^"*

10 . After this, the Carthaginian king,®^ Himelcho, lost his army in a

50 Orosius chooses his words carefully here. The sacrifices were intended to anticipate
plague by preventing it; Orosius, of course, means that they anticipated plague by producing
its effects in advance. The question of human sacrifice at Carthage is controversial; for a full
discussion, see Barnes (1971) 13-21, and Lancel (1995) 227-56.

51 Orosius has misread his source here, Justin, 18.7.1, which in fact states the reverse -
that Carthage fought a long successful war and that the displeasure of the gods brought defeat
only when they campaigned in Sicily. Over-eagerness to denounce pagan human sacrifice is
probably at the root of Orosius’s eiTor, rather than a corrupt manuscript.

52 i.e. the Punic god Melqart.

53 Mazeus is called Malchus by Justin, 18.7.2. The name is probably a corruption of the
Phoenician title MLK or Lord; see Picard and Picard (1968) 56-59 who are inclined to doubt
the historicity of the whole episode, as is Lancel (1995) 111—12.

54 For ideological reasons Orosius, 2.2.9-10, places Cyrus’s reign at the time of the fall of
Tarquinius Superbus. This allows him to synchronise the rise of Rome and the fall of Babylon.

55 In fact, as Justin, 19.2.7, states, Himelcho, normally spelt Himilcho, was simply a
general, not a king. Orosius has suppressed Justin’s notice of Malchus’s successor, Mago,
under whom, according to Justin, 18.7.19, the Carthaginian state prospered.

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sudden, terrible plague while waging war in Sicily. 11. The disease brooked
no delay, the troops died in droves: as soon as a man fell sick, he died,
nor were men buried any longer. After the bearer of these ill-tidings had
filled an astounded Carthage with sudden grief, her distress was the same
as if the city had been captured.^^ 12. Everywhere echoed with cries of
lamentation, doors were shut up on all sides, all public and private business
was forbidden, everyone rushed down to the port and asked the few who
had survived the disaster about their kinsmen as they disembarked from
the ships. 13. When from these men’s silence or groaning, these wretched
folk learnt of the disaster that had befallen their kinsmen, the cries of the
grieving and then the weeping and wailing of hapless mothers were heard
along the whole shoreline. 14. Amid these scenes, the commander too
disembarked/rom his ship in an ungirt, dirty, slave’s tunic. On his appear¬
ance, the weeping crowds joined together as one and he too lifted his hands
to the sky,^^ bemoaning and bewailing now his own, and now the state’s,
misfortune. 15. Finally, crying out as he went, he passed through the city,
entered his own house, with his last words dismissed the wailing band who
had followed him, and then, after bolting his doors and barring even his own
sons, put an end with his sword to both his sorrow and his life. These things
happened in the times of Darius.

16. After this, Hanno, a Carthaginian whose private wealth exceeded
the resources of the state, imbibed a great lust of seizing power. To further
this end, he decided to devise a false wedding for his only daughter and
poison the drinks of all those senators whose rank he thought would be an
obstacle to his plans. 17. The plan was betrayed by his servants and circum¬
vented, though no vengeance was taken on the grounds that in dealing with
a powerful man, the plot might cause more trouble when disclosed than it
had when it had been devised. Foiled in this plan, Hanno conceived another
scheme to further his criminal ambition. He inflamed the slaves, intending
to use them to overwhelm the unsuspecting city in a sudden uprising. 18.
But when, before the day that had been marked down for this slaughter, he
learnt that he had been betrayed and his actions anticipated, he occupied
a strongpoint with 20,000 armed slaves. 19. He was captured there while
stirring up the Africans^'^ and the king of the Moors. First, he was beaten

56 This phrase is taken verbatim from Justin, 19.2.8. The whole account of the plague
paraphrases Justin veiy closely.

57 This phrase is taken verbatim from Justin, 19.3.1-2.

58 Darius II (424^04 BC).

59 i.e. the local native tribesmen of the region.

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with rods, then his eyes were gouged out and his arms and legs broken, as
if to inflict punishment on each of his limbs, and finally he was put to death
before the people. 20. His body, lacerated from his flogging, was nailed to
a cross, and all his sons and male relatives were put to death so that no
one from the same family should ever think of imitating, or avenging, him.^
These things happened in the time of Philip.*'

21. After this, the Carthaginians learnt that Tyre, their mother city, had
been captured and destroyed by Alexander the Great. Tearing that he would
cross into Africa, they ordered a certain Hamilcar who was called ‘the
Rhodian’, a man outstanding in his eloquence and cunning, to look into
Alexander’s plans. 22. After being given asylum by Parmenion as if he was
a refugee, and then being accepted into the king’s service, he informed his
countrymen of all the king’s plans by writing them on tablets that he then
covered over with wax.® After the death of Alexander, Hamilcar returned to
Carthage and was murdered as if he really had sold his city to the king. This
was done not so much out of ingratitude as out of a cruel sense of envy.

23. The Carthaginians then waged incessant, but fruitless, wars against
the Sicilians. They besieged Syracuse, which at that time was the wealthiest
city in Sicily, but they were outwitted by the astounding cunning of Agath-
ocles, the king of Sicily, and brought to the point of complete despair.*''

24. Eor while the Carthaginians besieged Syracuse, Agathocles, seeing
that he would be no match in battle, given the state of his troops, and that he
did not have enough money to pay a garrison to last out a siege, employing
a plan that was well conceived and even better concealed, crossed over to
Africa with his army.** On his arrival, he revealed his plan to his men and
told them what had to be done. 25. Straightaway, and with one accord, they
burnt the boats in which they had come so that they should have no hope of
returning, and then laid low every site to which Agathocles led them. After

60 The episode of Hanno is drawn from Justin, 21.4. The italicised section is either taken
verbatim or is an extremely close paraphrase of Justin. The incident took place in 344 BC.

61 i.e. Philip II of Macedon.

62 The strategy is the same as used by Demaratus to inform the Spartans of Xerxes’ plans;
see Herodotus, 2.9.1. Curiously, Orosius, who is likely to have known of Demaratus and
despite his love of contrast, does not draw attention to the reversal of the barbarians’ and
Greeks’ roles in this later tale.

63 The episode of Hamilcar the Rhodian is taken from Justin, 21.6, the italicised section
being drawn virtually verbatim.

64 Agathocles became tyrant of Syracuse in 317 BC, but only began to style himself king
in 304 BC after his wars with Carthage.

65 Agathocles landed on the Cap Bon peninsula in modem Tunisia in 310 BC.

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they had fired various farms and strongholds, they were met by a certain
Hanno with 30,000 Punic troops.'’*’ Agathocles killed him along with 2,000
of his men, while losing merely two of his own in the battle.*’^ 26. This
encounter utterly broke the spirit of the Africans,*® while raising that of his
own men to an enormous degree, and Agathocles went on to storm both
cities and strongholds, obtaining a vast amount of booty and killing many
thousands of the enemy. 27. He pitched his camp five miles from Carthage
so that from its walls the inhabitants could see for themselves the destruc¬
tion of their finest possessions, the laying waste of their land, and the firing
of their farms.

28. A rumour then made the Carthaginians’ current plight even worse. It
was announced that the army of Africans in Sicily had been destroyed along
with its commander. Agathocles’s brother, Andro, had crushed it while it
was completely off-guard and almost behaving as if it was on holiday.’*’

29. When this rumour spread through all of Africa, not only the Carthag¬
inians’ tributary cities, but even the kings allied to them deserted. Among
these was Afellas, the king of Cyrene, who made a military alliance with
Agathocles as he burned to possess the kingdom of Africa. 30. However,
after they had joined their armies together in a single camp, he was beguiled
by the blandishments and trickery of Agathocles and killed.”

31. The Carthaginians had now gathered their forces together from all
sides and were eager for the fray. Agathocles joined battle with them, having
on his side the troops of Afellas, and after a severe battle with much spilling
of blood on either side, he emerged victorious. 32. At this crucial moment
in the struggle, the Carthaginians were so despondent that had there not
been a mutiny in Agathocles’ army, their general Hamilcar would have

66 ‘Poeni’. The translation has endeavoured to retain the variety of words Orosius uses for
the Carthaginians, of which this is one. Here Orosius has either a read a corrupt manuscript or
misunderstood Justin, 22.6.5, who speaks of 30,000 pagani or country-dwellers, who are likely
to have been North African tribesmen, and not Carthaginians per se.

67 Orosius has misread Justin, 22.6.5, who states that Agathocles lost 2,000 men to Hanno’s
3,000.

68 Orosius is using ‘African’ here as variatio for Carthaginian, in his account Justin, 22.6.7,
uses ‘Punic’.

69 Taken virtually verbatim from Justin, 22.6.9.

70 Agathocles’ brother is called Antander by Justin, 22.7.2. He defeated Hamilcar in 309
BC. The moralising comments about Hamilcar are Orosius’s embroidery of Justin’s account.

71 Afellas is the Ophelias of Justin, 22.7.4. Ophelias was sent by Ptolemy I as governor
of Cyrene, where he established a virtually independent fiefdom. He was probably murdered
in 309 BC.

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defected to him along with his army. Because of this offence, the Carthagin¬
ians ordered that Hamilcar be impaled in the middle of the forum to form a
cruel spectacle for his own peopleJ^

33 . After the death of Agathocles,^^ the Carthaginians marshalled a fleet
and laid waste to Sicily, but they were then defeated many times on both
land and sea by Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been summoned over
from Italy by the Sicilians. After this, they turned again to fighting Rome.

34 . O, the suffering that we see here! Do the men who grumble about
recent events, read about the past? Indeed, they do, and draw their conclu¬
sions from jaundice, not judgment. 35 . They are urged on by a great, ineffable
goad, which they themselves do not see - namely, they moan not because
our times are bad, but because they are Christian. The product of this ulcer
of hatred is that whatever happens in detestable circumstances comes to
seem all the worse. 36 . Even in our circles it is often the custom for those
who are detested to be seen in their enemies’ eyes as doing nothing which
is not depraved, nothing which is not shameful, nothing which does not do
themselves harm, either by word or deed. And all of this is believed almost
without reflection, for hatred grips and twists the heart to such a degree
that nothing appears in its natural light. 37 . Our detractors are also among
this group’s numbers, but they are even more pitiful because they are the
enemies of God, and hence the enemies of Truth. We say this weeping with
sorrow for them^"* whom, if they could endure it, we would reprove in order
that we might heal them. 38 . Eor they perceive these present troubles with
diseased eyes so that what they see seems double to them, and, befuddled
by the fog of wickedness, they fall into that state where by seeing less, they
see more, since they are unable to see the nature of the things which they
see.’^ 39 . They think a beating from their father worse than fires started by
their enemy, and call the God Who soothes, admonishes, and redeems them
harsher than the Devil who persecutes, enslaves, and slaughters them, 40 .
although, if they knew the Eather, they would rejoice in His punishments,

72 The italicised section is taken verbatim, or virtually verbatim, from Justin, 22.7.7-8. The
executed general was named Bomilcar, not Hamilcar, see Justin, 22.7.7—11. Orosius rightly
makes Bomilcar a general, not a king as Justin does, but suppresses the point of the execu¬
tion: according to Justin, 22.7.8, the Carthaginians used the forum so that Bomilcar would be
punished where he was previously honoured. The gloss of a cruel spectacle is Orosius’s own,
and he also suppresses Justin’s story of Bomilcar’s courage during his crucifixion.

73 Agathocles died in 289 BC, perhaps by poison. Orosius is surprisingly abrupt in bringing
his account of the Sicilian king to an end.

74 cf. Philippians 3.18.

75 This argument could, of course, easily be reversed by Orosius’s opponents.

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and, if they saw the coming fruit of their education, they would find His
discipline tolerable, and, because of the hope, which was once denied, but
which has now been given, to the gentiles, even if they suffered more than
now, they would consider that they suffered less. 41 . Moreover, they can
learn to despise suffering from the examples of their own people’* among
whom the greatest troubles were counted as the greatest good, provided that
the glory of a famous and outstanding reputation followed on from them.
42 . From these men we can see how much we, to whom a blessed eternity
has been promised, should endure for the sake of life, when they were able
to endure so much merely for the prospect of fame.

777

1 . 483 years after the foundation of the City, namely in the consulate of
Appius Claudius and Quintus Fabius, the Romans sent the consul Appius
Claudius with an army to the aid of the Mamertines, who possessed the
noble town of Messana in Sicily, against Hieron, the king of Syracuse, and
the Punic forces allied with Hieron.’* 2 . Appius defeated the Syracusans
and the Punic forces so rapidly that the king, terrified by the scale of these
events, admitted that he had been beaten even before he joined battle.’^ 3 .
After the destruction of his forces, he lost his confidence and immediately
asked for peace as a suppliant. This was granted after he had been fined 200
talents of silver by order of the consuls.*®

4 . The consuls then besieged the Sicilian town of Agrigentum and the
Punic garrison there, surrounding the town with siege works and a rampart.
5. Since the Elder Hannibal,*' the Punic commander, was trapped in this
siege and reduced to dire straits, Hanno, the Carthaginians’ new commander.

76 i.e. the pagans.

77 Orosius’s main source here is Livy, 16 and 17. This chapter begins Orosius’s account of
the First Punic War. For a detailed modem discussion of the war, see Lazenby (1996).

78 Orosius has made several errors here. Appius Claudius’s expedition took place in 264
BC, i.e. 490 AUC\ moreover Appius’s fellow consul was M. Fulvius Flaccus, not Quintus
Fabius who was consul in the previous year.

79 cf. Fionas, 1.18.7. Orosius is following the version of Fabius Pictor, probably second¬
hand via Livy, 16. According to Philinus of Agrigentum, the Romans were defeated.

80 Hieron became the tyrant of Syracuse in 271 BC and proclaimed himself king in 265
BC, reigning until 216 BC. Orosius implies that Appius and Fabius exacted the fine, but in fact
this was done by the consuls of 261 BC. The figure of 200 talents is also found in Eutropius,
2.19.

81 Hannibal, the son of Cisco.

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made an emergency incursion on his behalf with 1,500 cavalry and 30,000
infantry, as well as 30 elephants. This delayed the storming of the city for
a short while, but it was captured straight after this episode. 6. The Punic
forces were defeated, indeed routed, in a great battle and lost eleven of their
elephants to the Romans, while the Agrigentines were all sold into slavery.
The elder Hannibal made a sortie with a few men and escaped.

7. In the consulate of Cornelius Asina and Gains Duilius,*^ after the
Elder Hannibal had marshalled a fleet of 70 vessels and laid waste the coast
of Italy, the Romans decided to construct and fit out a fleet of their own. 8.
This decision was swiftly implemented by the consul Duilius, for within 60
days the trees had been felled and a fleet of 130 ships had been launched and
lay at anchor.®^ 9. The other consul, Cornelius Asina, made for the island
of Lipara®'* with 16 ships. Here he was captured by Hannibal who, with
typical Punic treachery,*^ pretended to invite him for peace talks, threw him
in chains, and murdered him.*® 10. After Duilius, the other consul, heard
of this, he set out to fight Hannibal with 30 ships. When battle was joined
at sea, Hannibal lost his ship, but was taken off by a small boat and fled.
Thirty-one of his ships were captured, 13 were sunk, 3,000 of his men were
killed, and 7,000 captured.*’'

11. Afterwards, in the consulate of Gaius Aquilius Elorus and Lucius
Cornelius Scipio,** the Carthaginians appointed Hanno as commander of
the war at sea in Hannibal’s place, with instructions to defend Sardinia and
Corsica. He was defeated by the consul Scipio and, after losing his army,
hurled himself into where the enemy were at their thickest and was slain
there.*®

12. In the same year, 3,000 slaves and 4,000 of her allied marines®®

82 494 Aucaeo BC.

83 See Florus, 1.18.7. Floms says the Roman fleet numbered 160. Orosius suppresses
Florus’s implication that the preparations were completed so quickly because of divine aid.

84 The present-day Lipari islands.

85 cf. Floms, 1.18.11, and Eutropius, 2.20.2.

86 In fact, Asina survived to be re-elected consul a second time. It is likely that the text has
become coiTupt with nexus, ‘bound’, being miscopied as necatus, ‘murdered’.

87 The Battle of Mylae. Eutropius, 2.20.2, has similar figures, but says 14 Carthaginian
ships were sunk. The rams of the Carthaginian vessels were used at Rome to decorate a column
surmounted by Duilius’s statue.

88 495 AC/C/259 BC.

89 The Battle of Aleria, mentioned on Scipio’s epitaph = CIL C 2.8 and 9.

90 The phrase ‘allied mai'ines’ only appears here and in Livy, from whom we must assume
Orosius drew the phrase. For a full discussion of the term, see Milan (1973).

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plotted to destroy the city of Rome, and, had not the plot been betrayed
beforehand, the city, which had no garrison, would have perished at the
hands of slaves.

891

1 . In the year which followed on from this, the consul Calatinus while
marching towards the city of Camerina in Sicily^^ rashly led his army into
a pass which the Punic forces had long since fortified. 2. He had no chance
of resisting or escaping from the enemy, and was saved by the courage and
vigour of Calpurnius Flamma, who with a band of 300 picked men seized
a small hillock which had been occupied by the enemy and by his attack
turned the full force of the Punic troops on himself, while the Roman army
crossed through the occupied pass without opposition from the enemy. 3 .
All 300 were killed in this engagement, except Calpurnius who escaped,
though he had been wounded many times and was covered with corpses.®^

4 . The Carthaginians once again put the Elder Hannibal in charge of
their fleet. He fought a sea battle with the Romans to no avail and was
defeated.®'* Afterwards a mutiny broke out in his army and he was stoned
to death by his own men.®^ 5. The consul Atilius®® then cruised round and
ravaged the famous Sicilian islands of Lipara and Malta.

6. The consuls were ordered to take the war to Africa and made for Sicily
with 330 ships where they were met by Hamilcar, the Punic commander,
and Hanno, who was in command of their fleet. There was a concerted naval
action in which the Carthaginians were put to flight and lost 64 ships.®® The
victorious consuls crossed over to Africa where the city of Clipea was the
first of all those that surrendered to them.®* 8. After this, they marched on

91 Orosius’s main source in this chapter is Livy, 17 and 18. See also Florus, 1.18.

92 This town was abandoned in the Classical period. It was located near the modem
Scoglitti.

93 This incident was well known in antiquity and is mentioned in Livy, Per. 17; Florus,
1.18.13-14, where Calpurnius is compared to Leonidas and the stand of the Spartans at
Thermopylae; and Frontinus, Stratagems, 1.5.15 and 4.5.10. Lazenby (1996) 75-76 is sceptical
as to whether the incident took place at all.

94 The Battle of Cape Tyndaris in 257 BC. The Roman fleet was commanded by Atilius
Regulus; see Polybius, 25.1.

95 According to Livy, Per. 17, Hannibal was cmcified by his men.

96 C. Atilius Regulus, consul in 257 BC.

97 The battle of Ecnomus, 256 BC. See Eutropius, 2.21.1, who gives identical casualty
figures. For detailed discussion of the battle, see Tipps (1985) and Lazenby (1996) ch. 6.

98 Known as Aspis in Greek, the present-day Kelibia in Tunisia.

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Carthage, plundering 300, or more, strongholds, and surrounded Carthage
with their hostile standards. 9 . The consul, Manlius, left Africa with the
victorious fleet and brought 27,000 captives and an immense amount of
plunder back to Rome.®^ 10 . Regulus, who had been allotted control of the
war against Carthage, marched forward with his army and pitched camp
not far from the river Bagras.'“ Here a serpent of incredible size devoured a
great number of soldiers when they went down to the river in need of water.
Regulus advanced with his army to flush out the beast. 11 . The javelins
and all the spears they threw at its back had no effect at all, falling from its
horrible, scaly backbone as they would have from a slanting ‘tortoise’ of
shields and in this incredible fashion they were deflected by the creature’s
hide so that its body should come to no harm. When Regulus saw his great
host being whittled down by the creature’s bites, worn out by its attacks, and
killed by its disease-ridden breath, he ordered the catapults to be brought
up. A millstone hurled by one of them struck the creature’s backbone and
so paralysed its entire body.

12 . Eor this is the nature of the serpent; while it seems to lack feet, its
ribs and scales, which run in equal measure from the top of its throat down
to the lowest part of its bowels, are so arranged that it can move by using its
scales as claws and its ribs as legs. 13 . It is not like the worm which has no
backbone and which moves by extending one by one the contracted parts of
its small body in the direction in which it is lying and then contacting the
parts it has extended; rather it moves its sinuous flanks around with alter¬
nating motions in order to keep rigid the line of its ribs along the side where
its spine curves outwards and dig in the hooks of its scales where its ribs are
naturally upright at their ends. By performing this action quickly on alternate
sides, it not only glides over flat surfaces, but even climbs slopes, taking as
many steps as it has ribs. 14 . It is for this reason that if it is struck in anyway
on any part of its body from the bowels up to its head, it is left helpless and
unable to move, because wherever the blow strikes, it breaks the spine which
is from where the serpent moves its foot-like ribs and hence its body.

Therefore, this serpent which had remained invulnerable from so many
javelins for such a long time, fell helpless when struck by a single stone and
was soon easily surrounded and speared to death. 15 . Its skin was carried to
Rome and for a time remained an object of wonder to all - they say it was

99 L. Manlius Vulso Longinus, consul in 498 AUC/256 BC. Eutropius, 2.21.2, gives an
equal number of prisoners.

100 The river Mejerdah. For Regulus’s campaign, see Tipps (2003).

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120 feet in length.'®'

16 . Regulus waged a terrible war against three generals, namely the two
Hasdrubals and Hamilcar who had been recalled from Sicily. In this campaign
17,000 Carthaginians were killed, 5,000 taken prisoner, 18 elephants were
captured, and 82 towns'®^ surrendered unconditionally to the Romans.

9103

1 . The Carthaginians, their forces shattered and disheartened by their
reverses, sought peace from Regulus. But when they heard his harsh, unrea¬
sonable terms, they thought it safer to die in arms than live in misery, hiring
not only Spanish and Gallic mercenaries of whom they already had large
numbers, but also engaging some Greeks.

2. And so they summoned Xanthippus, the king of the Lacedaemonians,
and his troops and made him their war-leader.'®"* Xanthippus inspected the
Punic troops, led them down onto the plain, and there joined battle against
the Romans with a much-improved army. 3. This place saw the great
ruination of Roman might, for 30,000 Roman soldiers were laid low in
this engagement. Regulus himself, a noble leader, was taken prisoner with
500 men, thrown into irons, and finally gave the Carthaginians in the tenth
year of the Punic War a glorious triumph.'®^ 4 . Xanthippus, conscious of his
audacious deed,^°^ and fearing a turn for the worse in this unstable situation.

101 Described as ‘splendidly absurd’ by Lazenby (1996) 100, the story of this serpent
was popular in antiquity, being found in Livy, Per. 18\ Valerius Maximus, 1.8; Aulus Gellius,
Attic Nights, 6.3; Florus, 1.18.20; and Silius Italicus, 6.151-293. Orosius takes pains to give
a naturalistic explanation of the snake, whereas Florus, and perhaps therefore Livy, hint that
there was something supernatural about it. The largest known snake, the anaconda, can grow
to 25 feet in length; the largest extinct snake, Titanoboa Cerrejonensis, reached 50 feet. For a
full discussion of giant snake stories in antiquity, see Stothers (2004).

102 Eutropius, 2.21.3, has 74, not 82 towns.

103 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 18.

104 Xanthippus was a Spaitan mercenary general, not the king of Sparta. Eutropius, 2.21.4,
coiTectly describes him as such. Polybius, 32.1, describes him somewhat ambiguously as ‘a
man who had undertaken Spartan training’, leading Lazenby (1996) 102-03, to suggest that he
may have been a mothax, i.e. the son of a helot mother rather than a Spartiate proper.

105 Eutropius, 2.21.5, gives identical figures. The battle, which is described at length by
Polybius, 1.32-34, probably took place on the plain of Tunis, though there are problems with
identifying its location; see Lazenby (1996) 104.

106 Virgil, Aeneid, 11.812. The quotation is singularly apt as it refers to Arruns who flees
after killing Camilla.

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immediately returned to Greece from Africa.*'’^

5. On the news that Regulus had been captured and of the disaster that
had befallen the Roman army, the consuls Aemilius Paulus and Eulvius
Nobilior,'®* who had been ordered to cross over to Africa with a fleet of 300
ships, made for Clipea.'®® Straightaway the Carthaginians made for the same
place with an equal number of ships'^® and a naval battle became inevitable.
6. 104 Carthaginian ships were sunk, 30 were captured along with their
marines, and, apart from this, 35,000 of their troops were killed. Roman
casualties were nine ships sunk, and 1,100 men killed.'" 7. The consuls then
pitched camp by Clipea. The Punic generals, the two Hannos, once again
gathered a great army, joined battle, and lost 9,000 men. 8. But at that time
good fortune never stayed long among the Romans, and whatever success
they had was immediately overwhelmed by a great mass of disasters. Eor
while the Roman fleet was returning to Italy loaded with plunder, it suffered
a set of terrible shipwrecks: out of the 300 ships, 220 perished and the other
80 only just survived after jettisoning their cargo.

9 . Hamilcar, the Punic leader, was sent with an army to Numidia and
Mauretania. He behaved cruelly, like an enemy, to all the people there, since
they were said to have given Regulus a friendly reception, and condemned
what remained of them to a hne of 1,000 talents of silver and 20,000 cattle.
He had all their tribal leaders impaled."®

10 . Two years later - as unrestrained frenzy is always forgetful of danger
- the consuls of the year, Servilius Caepio and Sempronius Blaesus,""*
crossed over to Africa with 260 ships and ravaged all the seacoast that lies
around the Syrtes. Then, advancing inland, they captured and razed a great
number of cities, bringing back a vast amount of booty to their fleet. 11 .
Subsequently while they were returning to Italy, 150 of their cargo ships

107 Orosius follows the version of Polybius, 1.36.2, and probably Livy. According to
Valerius Maximus, 9.6, he was arrested at sea by the Carthaginians, while Jerome, On Daniel,
11.7.9, states that he entered the service of the Egyptian king Ptolemy Euergetes.

108 The consuls of 499 AC/C/255 BC.

109 The modern Kelibia in Tunisia. Polybius, 1.36.10, has 350 ships.

110 Polybius, 1.36.8-9, has 200 ships.

111 Eutropius, 2.22.2, omits the Roman casualties and says only 15,000 Carthaginians
were killed or captured.

112 The fleet was wrecked off Camarina in 255 BC. Orosius suppresses Livy’s comment,
found in Eutropius, 2.22.4, that this disaster did not break the Romans’ spirit.

113 This information is only found in Orosius.

114 The consuls of 501 AC/C/253 BC.

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were dashed onto the rocks around the promontory of Palinurus"^ where the
Lucanian mountains run down to the sea, and they sadly lost their glorious,
but cruelly gained, plunder.

12 . For a time the enormity of their sufferings overcame the Romans’
disgraceful greed, for the Senate, which was disgusted by naval affairs,
decreed that Italy should have a fleet of no more than 60 ships for its
defence,"® but seduced by their irrepressible greed, they immediately broke
their decree.

13 . Moreover, the consul Cotta'" crossed over to Sicily, fought many
battles, both by sea and on land, against the Punic forces there and the
Sicels,"® and left piles of unburied dead, some of the enemy, but others of
his own allies, all across Sicily.

14 . In the consulate of Lucius Caecilius Metellus and Gains Furius
Placidus,"^ Hasdrubal, the Carthaginians’ new general, came from Africa to
Lilybaeum'^® with 130 elephants and more than 30,000 infantry and cavalry,
and straightaway engaged the consul Metellus at Panormus.'^' 15 . However,
Metellus, while he feared the great power of these beasts, used a clever
strategy and put them either to flight or to death.In this way, he easily
defeated the enemy despite their great numbers. 20,000 Carthaginians died
in this battle, in addition 26 elephants were killed and 104 captured.
These were paraded through Italy giving an unrivalled spectacle to the
Italian peoples.'^"' Hasdrubal fled with a few men to Lilybaeum and was
condemned to death by the Carthaginians in his absence.

115 The modern Capo Palinuro.

116 cf. Eutropius, 2.23.2, and Polybius, 1.39.7-8.

117 C. Aurelius Cotta, consul in 502 Af/C/252 BC.

118 The native inhabitants of Sicily as opposed to Greek or Punic colonists.

119 The consuls of 503 At/C/251 BC. Orosius has misspelt Pacilus as Placidus.

120 The modern Marsala.

121 The modern Palermo.

122 Metellus dug a deep trench outside the town and then told some of his troops to
advance, throw their javelins at the elephants, and immediately retreat. The mahouts pursued
the retreating Romans, but had their charge halted by the trench and the elephants were then
exposed to missile fire from the entire Roman army; see Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.5.4.

123 Pliny, Natural History, 8.6.16, gives the number captured as 142 or 140.

124 Quite how the elephants were taken to Italy is a mystery. Frontinus, Stratagems, 1.7.1, has
them floated across the straits of Messina on rafts built to look like courtyards and buoyed up by
jars. Eutropius, 2.24.1, speaks of them jamming the roads into Rome. Perhaps Orosius has misread
his source at this point and assumed that this implied that the elephants were being deliberately
led thi'ough all of Italy. Their fate was to be slaughtered in the games. Members of the family
who were subsequently moneyers used the elephant on their coins to commemorate the battle.

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10125

1 . After this, the Carthaginians, worn down by so many misfortunes, decided
that they must seek peace from the Romans. To this end, they thought that
it was especially important to send along with their other envoys the former
Roman commander, Atilius Regulus, whom they had now held in captivity
for five years. When he returned from Italy having failed to secure peace,
they murdered him by cutting off his eyelids and tying him to a torture engine
that stopped him sleeping

2. The other Atilius Regulus and Manlius Vulsco, who were both consuls
for the second time,'^’ then advanced on Lilybaeum with a fleet of 200 ships
and four legions. The Romans were trying to besiege this town which lies
on a promontory, when they were defeated by the intervention of Hannibal,
Hamilcar’s son. The two consuls themselves escaped with some difficulty,
but the greater part of their army was lost.'^*

3 . After them, the consul Claudius'^® advanced against the enemy to the
port of Drepanum'^® with a fleet of 120 ships, where he was soon cut off and
defeated by the Punic fleet. Claudius himself fled with 30 ships to his camp
at Lilybaeum. All the other ships, that is 90 of them, were either captured or
sunk. 8,000 soldiers were killed and 20,000 taken prisoner.*^' Gains lunius,
Claudius’s colleague, also lost his entire fleet through shipwreck.

4 . In the following year, the Punic fleet crossed over to Italy and laid

125 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 18 and 19.

126 The embassy took place in 250 BC. The italicised section is a direct quotation from
Cicero, Against Pisa {In Pisonem), 19.43. It is closely paralleled by Valerius Maximus,
9.2.ext.l, and the two may draw on a common source. Regulus’s fortitude was commemorated
by Horace, Odes, 3.5, and his story was a favourite topic of Augustine, see City of God, 1.15
(where the sleep-preventing engine is described), 1.24, 2.23, 3.18, and 5.18.

127 The consuls of 504 At/C/250 BC. G. Atilius Regulus Sen'anus was the son of the
Regulus whom the Carthaginians put to death.

128 According to Polybius, 1.44.2, Hannibal’s relief force was 10,000 men strong.

129 P. Claudius Pulcher, consul in 505 At/C/249 BC.

130 The modern Trapani.

131 P. Claudius Pulcher was consul in 249 BC. Drepanumlies some 15 miles from Palermo.
For a description of this battle, see Lazenby (1996) 133-36. Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.13.9, says
Claudius escaped with his remaining ships by decorating them as if he had won the battle.
Orosius has suppressed the most famous event about this battle, namely Claudius throwing
overboard the sacred chickens when they gave a poor omen for the following battle; see Livy,
Per. 19; Florus, 1.18.29; and Eutropius, 2.26.1. This incident, which seemingly confirms the
truth of paganism, would not have been at all germane to his purposes. Eutropius gives the size
of the Roman fleet as 220 ships and says 90 were captured with their marines and the rest sunk.
Only Orosius gives numbers for those killed or taken prisoner.

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waste to most of it far and wide.

5. Meanwhile, Lutatius had crossed over to Sicily with a fleet of 300
ships.He was badly wounded in the thigh while fighting in the front rank
at Drepana'^^ and on the point of capture, when he was snatched from harm’s
way. 6. Then the Punic troops advanced on Sicily with 400 ships and large
number of troops under the command of Hanno. Lutatius was equal to them
and, indeed, anticipated the Punic plans with remarkable speed. After both
sides’ fleets had spent the entire night off the Aegades,'^'* lying so close to
one another that their anchors almost became entangled. When dawn broke,
Lutatius was the first to give the signal for battle. 7. As the fighting grew
fiercer, Hanno was defeated, turned his ship away and, though the leader,
was the first to flee. Some of his army went with him to Africa,'^® others fled
to Lilybaeum. 63 Punic ships were captured, 125 were sunk, 32,000 men
were captured, and 14,000 were slaughtered. Twelve Roman ships were
sunk.'^'’ 8. Lutatius then marched on the city of Erycina'^^ which was held
by Punic forces, and joining battle there, killed 2,000 Carthaginians.

11138

1. After this, the Carthaginians sent with all haste to the consul Lutatius
and then to Rome. They begged for peace and at once obtained it on the
conditions previously proposed. 2. These were that they should leave Sicily
and Sardinia and pay 3,000 Euboean talents'^^ of refined silver in equal
instalments over twenty years as reparations for the war. 3. These peace
terms were made twenty-three years after the Punic war first broke out.

132 G. Lutatius Catulus, consul in 512 At/C/242 BC. Eutropius, 2.27, also gives the
number of ships as 300, though Polybius has 200. According to Polybius, 1.59.8, these ships
were modelled on captured Carthaginian vessels.

133 The modern Trapani.

134 These three islands, Maretimo, Favignana, and Levanzo lie to the west of Sicily.

135 Where he was cmcified, see Zonaras, 8.17.

136 Lutatius was elected consul in 242 BC. The Battle of Aegates took place on 10 March
241 BC. Eutropius, 2.27.3, gives identical casualty figures except for the Carthaginian dead
whom he places at 13,000. Polybius, 1.61.6 and 1.61.8, gives a much lower figure of 10,000
Carthaginians captured, and gives the losses in ships as 50 sunk and 70 captured for Carthage
and apparently none for Rome. Diodorus Siculus, 24.11.1, however, says 30 Roman ships were
sunk and 50 disabled.

137 The modern Santo Giuliano.

138 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 19 and 20.

139 A standard measure, weighing some 57 lb.

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4 . Whose tongue can tell,^‘*° I ask, of a single war waged by two cities
for three and twenty years and the number of Carthaginian kings, Roman
consuls, columns of troops, and numbers of ships, that it brought together,
threw aside, and destroyed?*'** Only when these matters have finally been
weighed up thoroughly, will our times he able to be judged.

5 . 507 years after the foundation of the City, a sudden reversal of
fortune in Rome itself forestalled the Romans’ triumph. I have not spoken
flippantly, for it was no moderate joy at Rome that this grief, as sudden as
it was terrible, destroyed. 6. In the consulate of Quintus Lutatius Catulus
and Aulus Manlius,*'*^ two contrary disasters caused by fire and flood almost
destroyed the city. The Tiber, swollen by unusually heavy rain, broke its
banks to a degree and for a length of time that no one had thought possible,
and laid low all the buildings of Rome built on the plain. 7 . All these areas,
whatever they were like, came to a common end, since where the flood
rose more slowly, it soaked things through and crumbled them away, while
where it came in a rushing torrent, it struck them and knocked them flat.

8. This terrible flood was followed by a fire that caused even more
terrible devastation. It is unclear where the fire began, but it snaked through
most of city, causing a pitiable loss of life and property; indeed, more was
consumed by this single blaze than could be restored by the great number
of victories won abroad. 9. After ravaging everything around the forum, it
took hold of the temple of Vesta and, since the gods did not even come to
their own rescue, the fire that was thought to be eternal was extinguished
by this temporal fire. Metellus when he carried his gods out of the temple
as they were about to go up in flames, hardly escaped alive and had his arm
half burnt away.*'*^

10 . In the consulate of Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus and Gains Valerius
Ealco, the Romans waged war on the Ealiscians of whom 15,000 fell in the
ensuing battle.*'*^

140 Virgil, Aeneid, 2.361.

141 This list of rhetorical questions bears a close resemblance to that found in Augustine,
City of God, 3.18.

142 513 Af/C/241 BC. There ai‘e two errors by Orosius here. He has placed the date of this
disaster six yeai's too late and has corrupted the name of the first consul involved who in reality
was Q. Lutatius Cerco.

143 L. Caecilius Metellus, the pontifex maximus. Augustine, City of God, 3.18, also uses
this incident to demonstrate the impotence of the pagan gods. Orosius has perhaps misread
him, as Augustine says that Metellus was ‘half-burnt’ with no qualifications. The incident is
also described by Ovid, Fasti, 6.437-54.

144 516 Af/C/238 BC. Orosius has misspelt the second consul’s name which should be
Gaius Valerius Falto. Eutropius, 2.28, gives identical casualty figures.

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179

12145

I.''*® In the same year, the Cisalpine Gauls became restive again.''*’ The war
against them had varying fortunes. In the first battle the consul Valerius and
3,500 of his men were killed; in the second 14,000 Gauls were slain and
2,000 captured. However, because of the initial disaster, the consul was not
allowed to celebrate a triumph.

2. In the consulate of Titus Manlius Torquatus and Gains Atilius
Bubulcus,''*® Sardinia rebelled with Punic encouragement, but the Sardinians
were soon defeated and crushed. War was then declared on the Carthaginians
on the grounds that they had violated the peace for which they themselves
had asked. 3. In response, the Carthaginians immediately became suppliants
and sued for peace. After the two delegations they sent achieved nothing,
and then after ten of their leading citizens had gone to Rome twice, asking
for peace with equal humility, but had failed to gain their request, they
finally got their wishes through the oratory of Hanno, the least distinguished
of their ambassadors. 4 . In this year, the gate of the temple of twin-faced
Janus was closed, because that year there was no war anywhere. This had
only happened before in the reign of King Numa Popilius.''"’

5. Now I must hold my tongue, as it is better to pass over in silence times
which can in no way be compared to our own so as not to rouse up by my
shouting those who find fault with times in which they live to exult - but in
fact over themselves. 6. Behold, the gates of Janus were closed, the Romans
had no wars to fight abroad, Rome held all her sleeping offspring in her
bosom and did not breathe a sigh of care. 7. When did this happen? After
the First Punic War. After how long did it happen? After 450 years of war.
How long did it last? A single year. And what followed? The Gallic War,
to pass over other events, and Hannibal, along with the Second Punic War.

8. Woe is me! How it shames me to have come to know about and uncov¬
ered these events. Was that year’s peace, or rather that shadow of peace, a
respite for their sufferings or an incitement for sins? Did that drop of oil
falling in the middle of a great flame extinguish the source of this great fire

145 Orosius’s source for the historical sections of this chapter is Livy, 20.

146 This is an artificial section break established by the Bolsving edition of Cologne in the
sixteenth century. In fact, this section belongs with 4.11.10.

147 The Gauls concerned are the Boii who had allied with the Gauls of the Po Valley and
the Ligurians.

148 519 At/C/235 BC. Orosius has misspelt Bulbus as Bubulcus, see Eutropius, 3.3.

149 cf. Eutropius, 3.3. Orosius has previously omitted any mention of Numa in his account
of the early history of Rome.

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or feed it? Did that tiny sip of cold water taken in high fever cure the patient
or make him hum all the more?'®” 9. For almost 700 years, namely from
Hostilius Tullius to Caesar Augustus, there was just one year when Roman
howels did not sweat blood. Through the long passing of so many lengthy
generations, the wretched City, which in tmth is our wretched mother, has
had scarcely a moment’s rest from fear of suffering, not to mention from her
sufferings themselves. 10 . If any man had enjoyed so little peace in his life,
could he have been said to have lived at all? If someone lived for an entire
year in pain and sorrow, but had passed just one day in the middle of that
year in peace and without strife, surely he would not feel that this day had
lightened his troubles, or consider that, because of it, the whole year had
not been one of sorrows?

11 . ‘But these men,’ he says,'^' ‘have set up this year as a glorious
symbol of Rome’s unflagging courage’ - would that they had passed over it
and left in oblivion Rome’s endless disasters.

12 . Leprosy is finally diagnosed in a man’s body if a different colour
appears in patches between the healthy parts of the skin, but if the disease
has spread everywhere to the degree that it makes the whole body this
colour, albeit an unnatural one, this form of diagnosis is impossible. In the
same way, if a life of continual hard work rolls on its way and is born with
equanimity and without a wish for a rest, this would be said to be a willing
choice and a chosen way of life. 13 . However, if the pleasures of our ances¬
tors and the enthusiasm of their descendants rest on this tiny time of repose,
it immediately becomes clear what joy this short time, and what bitterness,
the rest of time brought: that is how agreeable this rest would have been,
had it been long-lasting, and how this unending misery ought to have been
avoided, if it could any way have been avoided.

13 ‘«

1 . 517 years after the foundation of the City, Hamilcar, the leader of the
Carthaginians, was killed by the Spaniards during a war, while he was
secretly planning another war - one against Rome.'^^

150 cf. 3.8.4.

151 The ‘men’ are Orosius’s pagan opponents and the speaker, the sick man of the previous
sentence.

152 Orosius main source for this chapter is Livy, 20 and 21.

153 This is Hamilcar Barca, the father of Hannibal. He died in 525 AUCI229 BC; Orosius’s
date is therefore eight years awry.

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2 . In the following year some Roman ambassadors were killed by the
Illyrians. After this, a bitter war was waged with this people in which, after
the destruction of many towns and peoples, the remnant surrendered uncon¬
ditionally to the consuls Fulvius and Postumius.'^'^

3 . Two years later, the pontifices'^^ who were powerful, but wicked,
brought death to the City through their sacrilegious rites. For the decemviri,^^^
following the demands of an ancient superstition, buried alive a Gallic man
and woman at the same time as a Greek woman in the cattle market. 4 .
But straightaway this occult ritual brought about the reverse of what was
intended, for they atoned for the terrible death they had worked on these
foreigners through having their own people horribly slaughtered.

5. In the consulate of Lucius Aemilius Catulus and Gains Atilius
Regulus,'^* the Senate was greatly troubled by the rebellion of Cisalpine
Gaul. It was also reported that a huge army made up mainly of Gaesati,^^^
which is not the name of a tribe, but that given to Gallic mercenaries, was
arriving from further Gaul.'“ 6. The consuls in their fright gathered together
the forces of all Italy to defend the empire. When this had been done, it is
said that each consul’s army had 800,000 men under arms - this is what the
historian Fabius, who took part in the war, has written.'®' 7. Out of these, the
Romans and Campanians provided 348,200 foot and 26,600 cavalry. The
rest of the host was provided by the allies.

8. Battle was joined near Arretium.'®^ The consul Atilius was killed and

154 L. Postumius Albinus and Gn. Fulvius Centumalus, the consuls of 525 AUCI229 BC
who celebrated their triumph the following year. Orosius has continued his chronological error
from the previous section.

155 Rome’s official pagan priesthood and thus a natural target for Orosius.

156 The decemviri (later Quindecemviri) sacris faciundis were another part of Rome’s
official pagan religion. Their main function was to guard the Sibylline Books, to consult them
in times of emergency, and suggest the appropriate religious remedies from them.

157 The Forum Boarium.

158 529 AUCI225 BC. Orosius has mistaken Lucius Aemilius’s cognomen which was
Papus.

159 The Gaesum is the name of a Gallic javelin; see Caesar, Gallic War, 3.4. Whether the
gaesati were mercenaiies per se rather than a form of the Germanic wai'band, or comitatus, is
disputed; for a full discussion, see Walbank (1970) 194-95. Units of Gaesati were found in the
Roman Imperial army; see Roman Inscriptions of Britain 1235 and CIL 13.1041.

160 i.e. Transalpine Gaul.

161 Q. Fabius Pictor, the early Roman annalist who wrote in Greek, but whose works were
later translated into Latin. Orosius has taken his information at second-hand, probably from
Livy. Eutropius, 3.5, makes the point in very similar language.

162 The modern Arrezo.

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his 800,000 Romans, after part of their number were cut down, fled, even
though the slaughter on their side ought not to have panicked them, for
historians record that only 3,000 of them were killed.

9 . The flight of so great an army with such small losses was all the more
infamous and shameful because the Romans betrayed that in their previous
triumphs they had been victorious not so much though the strength of their
courage as through war’s hazards. Who, I ask, would believe that there had
been this number in the Roman army, let alone that they fled?

10 . After this, a second battle was fought against the Gauls in which at
least 40,000 of them were slaughtered.'®^

11 . In the following year, the consuls Manlius Torquatus and Eulvius
Elaccus were the first to lead Roman legions across the Po. There they
fought with the Insubrian Gauls, killing 23,000 of them and capturing 6,000
more.'®''

12 . Then in the year that followed on from this one, grim prodigies
terrified the wretched City. Wretched it was indeed, being terrorised on the
one side by the cries of its enemies, and on the other by the wickedness of
demons. For in Picenum a river ran with blood, among the Etruscans the
sky seemed to be in flames, and at Ariminum'®® a bright light shone out in
the depths of the night and three moons appeared to rise in different regions
of the heavens. 13 . At that time too, the islands of Caria and Rhodes were
struck so hard by an earthquake that, as buildings fell down everywhere,
even the famous Colossus came crashing down.'®®

14 . In this same year, the consul Flaminius defied the omens that forbade
him to wage war, attacked the Gauls and defeated them. In this war, 9,000
Gauls were killed and 17,000 were captured.'®’

15 . After this, the consul Claudius annihilated 30,000 Gaesatv. he
himself went into the front line and killed their king Virdomarus.'®* Among
the many towns of the Insubrians, whom he forced to surrender, he captured

163 The Battle of Telamon (the modem Telamone) fought in 529 At/C/225 BC.

164 The consuls of 530 At/C/224 BC.

165 The modern Rimini.

166 One of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus fell in an eaithquake in
either 228 or 226 BC. Orosius has drawn his information from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1793
= 529 At/C/225 BC.

167 Gaius Flaminius, consul in 531 AUCI22?) BC. Orosius is happy to mention the dehance
of omens when they ai‘e proved wrong - a striking contrast to his suppression of the reports of
omens which proved to be connect at Drepanum, see 4.10.3 above.

168 M. Claudius Marcellus, consul in 532 At/C/222 BC. The battle took place at Acerrae,
the modem Acerra.

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was the flourishing city of Milan.'®®

16 . Then a new enemy, the Histri, roused themselves up to fight. The
consuls Cornelius and Minucius subdued them though after the loss of much
Roman blood.'™ 17 . At this time, there emerged once again a little of that old
Roman appetite for iniquitous fame even when it involved parricide. 18 . For
Fabius Censorius killed his own son, Fabius Buteo, who had been charged
with theft - a crime worthy of a name which his father considered should be
punished by death, even though it was something for which the law would
not sentence any man whatever to more than a fine, or at most exile.'®'

14'72

1 . 534 years after the foundation of the City,'®^ the Punic general Hannibal
first marched on Saguntum, a flourishing town in Spain and a friend of
the Roman people, then besieged it, reduced it to starvation, and finally,
after eight months, during which by looking to the support that Rome had
promised, it had bravely endured everything foul and fair, destroyed it.'®'' 2.
He refused in a most insulting fashion even to see the ambassadors sent to
him from Rome.

3. This came from his hatred of Rome, a hatred he most faithfully vowed
to his father at their altars, although he was the most faithless of men in other
matters. In the consulate of Publius Cornelius Scipio and Publius Sempro-
nius Longus,'®® he crossed the Pyrenean mountains, opening a way by the

169 M. Claudius Marcellus, consul in 532 AUCI222 BC; cf. Eutropius, 3.1-2. Orosius’s
comment on Milan appears to be a reference to the city of his own day rather than that of the
third century BC.

170 P. Cornelius Scipio Asina and M. Minucius Rufus, consuls in 533 AUCI22\ BC. The
Histri, or Istrians, lived on the Adriatic coast of Croatia and were defeated at the battle of
Clastidium, the modern Casteggio.

171 This incident is only preserved in Orosius. The force of ‘any man whatever’ is to
emphasise the horror Orosius feels at Censorius executing his own son.

172 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 21.

173 220 BC. Orosius’s date is one year out; Hannibal in fact attacked the town in 535
AC/C/219 BC.

174 Now once again renamed Sagunto, previously Murviedro. Rome made a somewhat
provocative alliance with this town in 220 BC after interfering in local politics there; see
Polybius, 3.15. Augustine, when discussing Saguntum, City of God, 3.20, makes much more
of Rome’s failure to help her ally and the impotence of the pagan gods than does Orosius here.

175 536 AC/C/218 BC. This Scipio is P. Cornelius Scipio, cousin of the consul of 221 BC
and father of P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal. Orosius has mistaken
Longus’s praenomen which was in fact Tiberius.

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sword through the fiercest of the Gallic tribes, and in only nine days had
advanced from the Pyrenees up to the Alps. 4 . Here he suffered four days’
delay, while he defeated the mountain-dwelling Gallic tribes who tried to
stop his ascent, and cut through the impassable rocks with fire and iron, buf
on the fifth day, with a huge effort he descended into the plain.

5. They say that at this time his army comprised 100,000 infantry and
20,000 cavalry.'’® 6. The consul Scipio was the first to oppose Hannibal.
Battle was joined at Ticinum,*” Scipio was badly wounded, but escaped
death through the help of his son, Scipio, who had not yet reached manhood,
but would afterwards be given the name ‘Africanus’. Almost the entire
Roman army was killed here.

7. A further battle was fought under the leadership of the same consul at
the river Trevia,'’® and again the Romans were defeated in a similarly disas¬
trous fashion. The consul Sempronius, on learning of his colleague’s defeat,
returned from Sicily with his army. He met Hannibal in the same fashion
by the same river, lost his army, and was almost the sole survivor. Hannibal
too, however, was wounded in this battle.

8. Later when Hannibal crossed into Etruria at the beginning of spring,
he was caught in a storm on the top of the Apennines and, trapped and
burdened by the snow, froze there, unable to move, for two entire days. It
was here that a large number of his men, even more of his pack animals, and
almost all his elephants died from the severity of the cold.

9 . Meanwhile, the other Scipio, the brother of Scipio the consul, fought
many battles in Spain where he defeated and captured the Punic general,
Mago.'™

I5180

1 . Dire portents terrified the Romans at this time. The sun’s orb seemed
to shrink; targes were seen in the sky at Arpi;'*' the sun also seemed to be

176 These are the highest figures listed by Livy, 21.38.2. Livy gives the lowest figures as
20,000 foot and 6,000 cavalry. These latter figures are cited by Polybius, 3.46.4, who says that
Hannibal gives them on an inscription that he erected at Lacinium. Lazenby (1978) 48 believes
them to be correct.

177 The modem Pavia.

178 Normally spelt Trebia, this river is a tributary of the Po which it joins near Placentia.

179 Gn. Cornelius Scipio who captured Hanno, not Mago.

180 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 22.

181 The modem Arpa in Apulia.

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fighting with the moon; at Capena two moons rose during daylight;'®^ in
Sardinia two shields sweated hlood; among the Faliscians the sky was seen
to be tom asunder as if it were gaping open;'®^ and at Antium when men
were harvesting, bloodstained ears of corn fell in their baskets.**"'

2. Hannibal, knowing that the consul Flaminius**® was alone in his camp,
advanced at the beginning of spring along the nearer, but marshy, road in
order to catch him off-guard and overmn him all the quicker. By chance, the
Sarnus*** had overflowed its banks far and wide, leaving the fields boggy
and marshy. This phenomenon is described by the line:

and those plains the Sarnus waters. **^

3. Hannibal advanced into these fields with his army, had his view
completely cut off by mist that rose up from the marsh, and lost a great
number of his allies and pack animals. He himself, sitting on the one
elephant which had survived, barely escaped from the difficulties caused by
his route, but lost an eye which had already become diseased because of the
harshness of the cold, his lack of sleep, and his exertions.

4 . After Hannibal had drawn close to the camp of the consul Flaminius,
he roused Flaminius to battle by laying waste to the surrounding area. 5.
This battle took place by Lake Trasumennus.*** Here the Roman army had
the misfortune to be surrounded by Hannibal’s skill*® and was slaughtered
to a man. The consul himself was killed and it is said that in this battle
25,000 Romans were laid low and a further 6,000 captured. 2,000 of Hanni¬
bal’s army fell.*®® 6. The battle at Lake Trasumennus was famous as being
a great disaster for Rome, and all the more so because the fervour of those
fighting was such that as they fought they did not notice a severe earthquake
which happened at this time and which was so powerful that it is said to

182 The ancient town lay some two and a half miles from the modern town of the same
name.

183 The Faliscians’ largest town was Falerii Veteres, the modem Civita Castellana.

184 The modern Anzio.

185 Gains Flaminius, consul in 537 At/C/217 BC.

186 The modem river Saimo, but the river involved here was the Arnus (the modern Amo)
not the Sarnus. Orosius has either misread Livy, 22.2.2, ‘fluviusarnus’, here, or had a poor
manuscript.

187 Virgil, AenWJ, 7.738.

188 Lake Trasimene. The battle was fought on 21 June 537 At/C/217 BC. The lake lies near
the modem town of Passignano.

189 Presumably a reference to Hannibal forming up in the mist out of sight of the Romans;
see Floms, 1.22.13, and Frontinus, Stratagems, 2.5.25.

190 Livy, 22.7.2, gives the Roman casualties as 15,000. Eutropius, 3.9, like Orosius, gives
25,000.

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have laid low cities, displaced mountains, split open rocks, and forced rivers
back in their courses.'®'

7. What happened at Trasumennus was followed by the battle at Cannae,
although the dictatorship of Eabius Maximus who stalled Hannibal’s onset
by delaying tactics, fell between the two.'®^

16'®3

1 . 540 years after the foundation of the City,'®'' the consuls Lucius Aemilius
Paulus and Publius Terentius Varro who had been despatched against
Hannibal unhappily lost, through the consul Varro’s impatience, almost all
the resources upon which the Romans had placed their hopes at Cannae, a
village in Apulia 2. For 44,000 Romans were killed in this battle, although
a large part of Hannibal’s army was lost too.'®^ But in no other battle against
a Punic enemy were the Romans brought so close to total annihilation. 3.
The consul Aemilius Paulus perished in the fight, as did 20 men of consular
or praetorian rank. Thirty senators were captured or killed, along with 300
men of noble family,'®^ 40,000 infantrymen, and 3,500 cavalry. The consul
Varro fled to Venusium'®® with 500 cavalry. 4 . There can be no doubt that
this would have been the last day of the Roman state, if Hannibal soon after
his victory had marched on to enter the City. 5. As a testimony of his victory,
Hannibal sent three modii of gold rings to Carthage that he had taken off the
hands of Roman knights and senatorsd^^

6. Despair for the republic reached such depths among the surviving
Romans that the Senate thought that a plan to abandon Italy and seek a new

191 Normally spelt Trasimene. Despite mentioning the eaithquake, Orosius suppresses the
ill omens that preceded the battle as they would suggest that paganism had some validity; see
Florus, 1.22.14.

192 Q. Fabius Maximus, dictator in 537 At/C/217 BC. Orosius’s use of cunctando,
‘delaying tactics’, here recalls a line of Ennius, unus homo nobis cunctando restituit rem, ‘By
delaying, one man restored our fortunes’; see Skutsch (1985) fr. 361.

193 Orosius’s source for this chapter is Livy, 22-25.

194 i.e. 214 BC. Orosius’s date is two years out; Cannae was fought on 2 August 538
At/C/216 BC.

195 The same figures are given by Eutropius, 3.10.3. Livy, 22.49.15, says 47,500 died,
Polybius, 3.117.4, 70,000. Polybius, 3.117.6, lists the Carthaginian losses as 5,500 infantry
and 200 cavalry.

196 i.e. families numbering a consul among their ancestors.

197 The modern Venosa.

198 Taken virtually verbatim from Eutropius, 3.11.1, except that Eutropius says the rings
came from knights, senators, and soldiers. Three modii is approximately six gallons.

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home ought to be considered. This motion, proposed by Caecilius Metellus,
would have been passed, had not Cornelius Scipio, the same who was after¬
wards to be called Africanus, but who at that time was a military tribune,
drawn his sword, frightening them from putting the motion to the vote
and forcing them instead to swear to defend their country. 7 . The Romans,
daring to hope for life, just as if they had come to life again from the deadj'^^
appointed Decimus Junius as dictator.™ He held a levy of 17-year-olds and
gathered together four legions of under-age and ill-disciplined troops from
all over Italy. 8. He even administered the soldiers’ oath immediately after
they had gained their liberty to slaves of undoubted strength or eagerness
who had been given to him by their masters, or been bought with public
funds if necessary. The arms they lacked, they took from the temples,^®'
and private wealth replenished the treasury in its hour of need. In this way,
the Equestrian Order and the panic-stricken plebs forgot their own interests
and looked to the common good.™ 9. To increase the army’s numbers, the
dictator Junius, resurrecting an old custom at Rome in times of troubles,
issued an edict that offered asylum to any man who was on the run because of
crimes he had committed or debts he had incurred, and promised immunity
in return for military service.^®^ The number of such men came to 6,000.
10 . Campania, or rather all of Italy, in complete despair that Rome would
ever regain her position, defected to Hannibal. 11 . After this happened, the
praetor Lucius Postumius who had been sent to fight the Gauls was killed
along with his army.

12 . Then, in the consulate of Sempronius Gracchus and Quintus Fabius
Maximus,™ Claudius Marcellus, a former praetor and proconsul designate,
fought Hannibal’s army and put it to flight.™After so many disasters had
been suffered by the republic, he was the first to give hope that Hannibal
could be beaten.

13 . In Spain the Scipios crushed the Punic general Hasdrubal in a great
battle while he was gathering an army to take to Italy.™ He lost 35,000 men,

199 Taken virtually verbatim from Floms, 1.22.23.

200 An en'or on Orosius’s part, the dictator was Mai'cus Junius Pera; see Livy, 23.14.2.

201 Strangely, Orosius, perhaps because of his Roman patriotism, avoids commenting on
the propriety of keeping arms in a place of worship, or on the lack of respect pagans had for
their temples.

202 As usual, Orosius takes an aristocrat’s view of Roman politics.

203 This had been done by Romulus soon after the foundation of Rome, see 2.4.3.

204 539 At/C/215 BC.

205 Livy, 23.16.8-16. This action forced Hannibal to raise the siege of Nola.

206 P. Cornelius Scipio, the father of Scipio Africanus and his brother Gn. Cornelius

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either captured or killed, from his army. 14 . They brought over into their own
camp some Celtiberian troops whom they bribed to desert from the enemy.
These were the first foreign troops that the Romans enrolled in their army.^®^
15 . The proconsul Sempronius Gracchus was led by a Lucanian guest-
friend of his into an ambush and killed.^®* 16 . The centurion Centenius
Penula sought of his own free will command of the war against Hannibal
by whom he was killed along with the 8,000 troops he had led out to battle.
17 . After him, the praetor Gnaeus Eulvius was defeated by Hannibal, lost
his army, and barely escaped with his own life.^®®

18 . O, the shame of recording these things! Should I speak more of the
Romans’ depravity than of their wretchedness? Or rather I should talk of
their depraved wretchedness or their wretched depravity? 19 . Who would
believe that at a time when the treasury of the Roman people was asking
for pitiful contributions from private individuals, when there was not a
soldier in the camp who was not a boy or a slave or a criminal or a debtor,
and there were not enough even of them, when almost every senator in the
house seemed to be a new member, and hnally, when everything had been so
depleted and broken down that they reached such a state of desperation that
a motion to leave Italy was submitted; 20 . who can believe that at a time,
when, as we have said, they could in no way sustain one war at home, they
undertook three more abroad? One was against Philip, the powerful king of
Macedonia,^'® the second in Spain against Hasdrubal, Hannibal’s brother,
and the third in Sardinia against the Sardinians and the other Hasdrubal, the
Carthaginians’ general. Apart from these, there was the fourth war against
Hannibal by whom they were being hard pressed in Italy. 21 . Neverthe¬
less, a courage bom of despair in each of these fields turned things out for
the better. Eor in all these places they fought from despair, and from their
fighting emerged victorious, by which we can clearly see that the times then
were not any calmer from their being at leisure, but rather that men were
braver in their misfortunes.

Scipio. The battle was fought on the line of the Ebro in 216 BC; see Livy, 23.28-29.

207 See Livy, 24.49.7-8. The Celtiberians were the racial group found in central Spain.
These events have been compressed, as the mercenaries were not hired until 213 BC. Orosius
may be noting the fact that that the first non-Italians in the Roman army were from Spain out
of a sense of local pride.

208 In 542 At/C/212 BC. Sempronius was taking troops to Capua at the time. See Livy,
25.15-16.

209 Gn. Fulvius Flaccus, who was defeated in 542 At/C/212 BC; see Livy, 25.20-21.

210 A reference to the First Punic Wai; 215-205 BC. The Philip concerned is Philip V of
Macedon (220-179 BC).

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1. 543 years after the foundation of the City,^" Claudius Marcellus captured,
with some difficulty and on his second attempt, Syracuse, the wealthiest
city of Sicily. When he had previously besieged it, he was driven back
by machines built by Archimedes, a citizen of Syracuse endowed with a
remarkable genius, and so was unable to storm the town.

2. In the tenth year after Hannibal had come to Italy, in the consulate
of Gnaeus Fulvius and Publius Scipio,^'^ Hannibal moved his army from
Campania and moved along the Via Latina^'^ through the lands of the
Sedicini and Suessani - a great disaster for all concerned - and pitched
camp by the river Anio, three miles from the City, producing tremendous
fear throughout the entire state. 3. While the Senate and people saw to their
different concerns, the women too, driven wild by panic, rushed along the
battlements, carrying stones up to the walls, and were the first to get ready
to fight for the walls. 4. Meanwhile, Hannibal advanced menacingly with
his light cavalry up to the Colline Gate, and then drew up all his troops
into battle array, and the consuls and the proconsul, Fulvius, did not refuse
battle. 5. But when both battle lines were drawn up in sight of Rome, which
would be the victor’s prize, so great a rainstorm mixed with hail suddenly
poured down from the clouds that it threw the columns into confusion, and
the troops, who could scarcely hold onto their arms, retired to their camps.
6. Then, after it had become fine again and the troops had returned to their
battle-lines, the storm returned, more violent than ever, curbing the audacity
of mortal men with an even greater fear and forcing the terrified armies to
flee back to their tents. 7. It is said that at this point Hannibal turned to his
religion and declared that at times the wish, and at others the ability, to take
Rome had not been given to him.^'"^

8. Now let the detractors of the True God give me a reply here, was it
Roman courage or Divine mercy that stood in the way of Hannibal seizing
and sacking Rome? Perhaps those who were saved think it unworthy to
admit that even though Hannibal was triumphant, he became afraid and
made this evident by retreating. 9. If it is clear that Divine protection came
in the shape of rain from heaven, I think it can be seen with clear certainty of
the same type, and impossible to deny, that this rain was opportunely brought

211 Syracuse was in fact captured in 542 At/C/212 BC.

212 543 At/C/211 BC.

213 The main road running from Rome into Campania.

214 See Livy, 26.11.2^, and Florus, 2.6.

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at a time of necessity by None other than Christ who is the True God.^*^
10 . This is especially the case when now we can add to the proof of His
powers. Eor when a drought wreaked havoc, they prayed continuously for
rain, the gentiles on some days and the Christians on others, and the longed-
for downpour never came, as even the gentiles themselves bore witness,
except on the day when it was permitted for Christ to be approached and an
approach to be made by the Christians.^'® 11 . So there can be no doubt that
the city of Rome was saved by this same True God, Who is Christ Jesus,
Who orders things according to the decrees of His ineffable judgment, and
that it was then saved on account of its faith which was to come and is now
being punished for the faction there who do not believe.

12 . Meanwhile in Spain, the two Scipios were killed by HasrubaTs
brother, and in Campania Capua was taken by the proconsul Quintus
Eulvius.^'^ The leading men of Campania committed suicide by taking
poison, while Eulvius put all the Senate of Capua to death, despite the
Senate of Rome forbidding him to do so.

13 . After the death of the Scipios in Spain, everyone was frozen by panic,
but then Scipio, although only a youth, put himself forward as commander
of his own free will. The treasury’s lack of funds was a disgrace 14 . and,
on the motion of Claudius Marcellus and Valerius Laevinus,^'® the consuls
of the day, all the senators brought out in public for the quaestors^'® their
coined gold and silver as a contribution to state funds. They left nothing for
themselves and their sons except a single ring and bulla ,along with an
ounce of gold and no more than a pound of silver each for their wives and
daughters

1 . Scipio at the age of 24 was allotted the proconsular command in Spain.
With his mind set, above all, on avenging his father and uncle, he crossed
the Pyrenees and with his hrst attack captured New Carthage^^' where the

215 For further rain miracles, see 5.15.15-16 and 7.15.8-11.

216 A reference to the ‘rain miracle’ which occurred during Marcus Aurelius’s German
Wars; see 7.15.9.

217 These events occurred in 543 AUC/2\ \ BC.

218 Consuls of 544 At/C/210 BC.

219 The financial officials of Rome.

220 The bulla was an amulet worn by youths before they reached manhood.

221 The modem Cartagena

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Punic forces kept most of their pay, a strong garrison, and large amounts
of silver and gold. It was here that he captured Hannibal’s brother, Mago,
whom he sent along with the rest of the prisoners to Rome.^^^

2 . On his way back from Macedonia, the consul Laevinus stormed the
city of Agrigentum in Sicily and captured Hanno, the Africans’ commander.
He received the surrender of 40 cities and stormed 26 more.

3 . In Italy, Hannibal killed the proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius, along with 11
tribunes and 17,000 men.^^^ 4 . The consul Marcellus fought a battle lasting
three whole days with Hannibal. On the hrst day, the result was indecisive,
on the second the consul was vanquished, on the third he emerged the victor,
killing 8,000 of the enemy and forcing Hannibal to flee to his camp with
what remained of his troops.

5. The consul Fabius Maximus once more stormed Tarentum, which
had defected from the Romans, captured it, and wiped out great numbers of
Hannibal’s troops along with their commander, Carthalo, there.^^® He sold
30,000 men into slavery, giving the proceeds to the treasury.

6. In the following year,^^* the consul Claudius Marcellus was killed
along with his army by Hannibal in Italy.

7. In Spain, Scipio defeated the Punic leader Hasdrubal and sacked his
camp.^^® Besides this, he brought 80 cities under his control, either receiving
their surrender or reducing them in battle. He sold the Africans into slavery,
but sent the Spaniards back to their homes without demanding a ransom.

8. Hannibal ensnared separately both of the consuls, Marcellus and
Crisipinus, in ambushes and killed them.^^®

222 In fact, this Mago was not the same Mago who had defeated the two Scipiones in Spain
in 212 BC. This error is also found in Eutropius, 3.15, who is Orosius’s source here.

223 Gn. Fulvius Centumalus, a consul of 211 BC and proconsul in 210 BC. He died in an
ambush near Herdonea, the modern Ordona in Apulia. Orosius’s casualty figures are far too
high; Eutropius, 3.14.5, says 8,000 Romans died. Livy, 21.1.13, presents a variety of figures
ranging from 7,000 to 13,000.

224 The Battle of Canusium fought in 209 BC. M. Claudius Marcellus was a proconsul, not
a consul. See Livy, 22.12.7ff, who gives the same casualty figures, for a detailed account of the
battle. Lazenby (1978) 175 casts doubts on the size of the engagement.

225 Q. Fabius Maximus Venmcosus, consul in 545 AC/C/209 BC.

226 546 AC/C/208 BC.

227 M. Claudius Marcellus, ‘the sword of Rome’ (Plutarch, Marcellus, 9.4), who died in a
small action near Petelia (the modem Strongoli).

228 The Battle of Baecula, perhaps the modem Bailen in northern Andalusia, 208 BC. For
a detailed description of the battle, see Livy, 27.18-19.

229 Orosius seems to have repeated himself, as he refemed to the death of Mai'cellus in
section 6 of this chapter. M. Claudius Marcellus and T. Quinctius Crispinus, consuls for 208

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9. In the consulate of Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Salinator,^^®
Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal, was ordered by the Carthaginians to unite
his forces with those of his brother and crossed from Spain into Italy, travel¬
ling through Gaul and bringing a great number of Spanish and Gallic auxil¬
iaries with him. After he had revealed to the consuls by his hasty arrival that
he already descended the Alps, he was, without Hannibal’s knowledge, cut
off by the Roman army and killed along with his army.^^' 10 . For a long time
the outcome of this battle was uncertain. The elephants in particular posed a
threat to the Roman battle-line. These were driven back by Roman soldiers
called the. flying squad because they flew from one place to another.^^^ 11 .
This type of soldier had been devised a short while before: they were a
group of youths picked for their agility, who were armed and mounted
behind cavalry troopers. On reaching the enemy, they leapt down from the
horses and immediately engaged as infantrymen in one position, while the
cavalry who had brought them fought in another, thus throwing the enemy
into confusion. 12 . When the elephants had been driven back by the flying
squad, as their own side were now unable to control them, they were killed
by having a woodworker’s chisel driven in between the ears. This method
of killing these beasts, when it was necessary, had been devised by this very
general, Hasdrubal, himself.

13 . This battle at the Metaurus river where Hasdrubal was killed was the
Punic Lake Trasumennus and the town of Cesena in Picenum, their village
of Cannae: 14 . for 58,000 men out of Hasdmbal’s army were killed there,
and a further 5,400 captured.Moreover, 4,000 Roman citizens were found
and brought back to their own. This provided some solace for the victorious
consuls, for 8,000 men from their own army had fallen. 15 . The head of his
brother, Hasdrubal, was thrown down before Hannibal’s camp. On seeing it,
Hannibal immediately realised the disaster that had befallen the Punic army
and, now in his twelfth year since he had arrived in Italy, retreated among
the Bruttii.^^®

16. After these events, there seemed to be a whole year’s lull in the storm

BC, were both killed in separate actions neai* Petelia.

230 547Af/C/207BC.

231 The Battle of the Metaurus River, 23 June 207 BC.

232 The velites.

233 According to Livy, 26.4.10, the velites were formed in 211 BC, although in fact he also
mentions them in 218 BC (21.55.11). Orosius’s etymology of the word is correct.

234 The figures are drawn from Livy, 27.49.6, who has 56,000 killed and 5,400 captured.
Polybius, 11.3.3, gives the much lower figure of 10,000 killed and puts Roman losses at 2,000.

235 The inhabitants of modern Calabria.

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of war between Hannibal and the Romans, for their camps were troubled by
disease and both armies were afflicted by a terrible plague.

17 . Meanwhile, after having reduced all of Spain from the Pyrenees
to the Ocean into a Roman province, Scipio returned to Rome.^^'’ He was
elected consul along with Licinius Crassus, crossed over to Africa, killed
the Punic general, Hanno, the son of Hamilcar, and scattered his army,
killing some of them and selling others into slavery. 11,000 Punic soldiers
died in this battle.

18 . The consul Sempronius engaged with Hannibal, was defeated, and
fled back to Rome.^^*

In Africa Scipio advanced on the winter quarters of the Punic troops
and those of the Numidians, both of which were not far from Utica, and
had them burnt soon after nightfall. 19 . The panicking Punic troops thought
that the fire had started by accident, ran out without their arms to extinguish
it, and so were easily defeated by the armed Romans. In each of these two
camps 40,000 men were lost to the sword and fire, and 5,000 captured.
Their leaders were piteously burnt and scarcely escaped with their lives.

20 . The supreme commander, Hasdrubal, managed to reach Carthage
as a fugitive. And so Syphax^'*® and Hasdrubal soon reformed an enormous
army, met Scipio in battle again, and were defeated and put to flight.^'*'
21 . Laelius and Masinissa captured Syphax as he fled; the rest of the
Carthaginian host escaped to Cirta, which Masinissa attacked and forced to
surrender. Masinissa took the defeated Syphax to Scipio in chains. Scipio
then handed him over to Laelius to take to Rome along with an enormous
amount of booty and a host of prisoners.

236 Scipio returned to Italy in 549 At/C/205 BC. Orosius exaggerates wildly the extent of
his conquests. Two provinces were formally established in Spain in 557 At/C/197 BC, but these
merely bordered the Mediten'anean coast of the peninsula.

237 Scipio landed at near Cap Faiina. The battle was near Utica, the modem Utique in
Tunisia, see Lazenby (1978) 205.

238 P. Sempronius Tuditanus, consul in 550 At/C/204 BC. His flight to Rome is recorded
only by Orosius.

239 The figures are drawn from Livy, 30.6.8. Lazenby (1978) 208 believes them to be
highly exaggerated.

240 The king of the Massaesyli, a tribe located in western Numidia.

241 The 'Battle of the Great Plains’ fought by the Bagradas river, the modem river
Medjerda, in 551 At/C/203 BC.

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1 . Hannibal, who had been ordered to return to Africa to help the weary
Carthaginians, hrst killed all his Italian soldiers who did not want to follow
him and then left Italy in tears.As he approached Africa, a sailor, whom
he had ordered to climb the mast and look from there at what region they
were approaching, told him he had seen a tomb in ruins. Horrihed by
this, Hannibal changed course and disembarked his troops by the town of
Leptis.^''^

2. After allowing his host to recuperate, he immediately went to
Carthage and sought an interview with Scipio. The two famous generals
looked on one another for a long time with mutual admiration, but as their
peace negotiations came to nothing, battle was joined. 3. This engagement
had long been planned with great skill by the generals concerned.^'*'* It was
waged with great numbers of men, fought with great spirit by the troops -
and it brought victory to the Romans. 80 elephants were captured or killed
on that field and 25,500 Carthaginians were slain. Hannibal, who had tried
every stratagem both before and during the battle, escaped in the confusion
with a few men, in fact with hardly more than four horsemen, and fled to
Hadrumentum.^'^^

4 . Afterwards, he returned to Carthage 36 years after he had left her as
a small child with his father, and persuaded the Senate, which was debating
what to do, that there was no hope left except to seek peace.

5 . In the consulate of Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus and Publius Aelius
Paetus,^'"’ the wish of the Senate and people was that Scipio grant peace
to the Carthaginians. However, more than 500 of her ships were sailed out
onto the deep and burnt in sight of the city. 6. Scipio, who now received
the surname ‘Conqueror of Africa’, returned to the City in a triumph.^'*’

242 Hannibal abandoned Italy in late 203 BC. Diodorus Siculus, 27.9, puts the number of
Italians killed by Hannibal at 20,000. No number is mentioned by Livy, 30.20, and it is unlikely
Orosius would have omitted the figure had he known it. The incident may be entirely fictional.
Orosius suppresses Livy’s comment that the Italians were killed in the temple precinct of Juno
Lacinia, as he wishes to retain the notion of Hannibal’s cruelty, but does not wish to associate
it, or Hannibal’s downfall, with pagan notions of sacrilege.

243 Leptis Parva, the modern Lamta in Tunisia.

244 The Battle of Zama fought in 202 BC. The modem site of the battle is disputed; see
Lazenby (1978) 218-27.

245 The modern Sousse in Tunisia.

246 Consuls in 553 At/C/201 BC.

247 Scipio was given the cognomen ‘Africanus’.

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Terence, the comic poet, as he was later to become, followed behind the
triumphal chariot, among the noble Carthaginian prisoners. He was wearing
a Phrygian cap - the sign that he had been given his freedom.^''*

1 . 546 years after the foundation of the City, the Second Punic War, which
had lasted 17 years, came to an end.^"^® It was immediately followed by
the Macedonian War in which the consul Quinctius Flaminius was allotted
command.^^® After many severe battles in which the Macedonians were
defeated, he granted peace terms to Philip.^’' 2. After this, he fought against
the Lacedaemonians, and on defeating Nabis,^^^ their leader, paraded two
most illustrious captives, Philip’s son, Demetrius, and Nabis’s son, Armenes,
in front of his chariot. 3. All the Roman prisoners who had been sold into
slavery in Greece by Hannibal were recovered and followed the triumpha-
tor’s chariot with their heads shaven to show that they had been purged of
their slavery.

4 . At the same time, the Insubres, Boii, and Cenomanni united under the
leadership of the Punic general Hamilcar who had remained in Italy, and
laid waste to Cremona and Placentia. They were defeated after a hard battle
by the praetor Lucius Fulvius.^®^

5. After this, the proconsul Flaminius fought and subdued King Philip
and, along with him, the Thracians, Macedonians, Illyrians, and many other
tribes besides who had given him their support.^^"^ 6. The defeated Macedo¬
nians had their camp captured and Polybius writes that 8,000 of the enemy
were slain that day and 5,000 captured. Valerius says that 40,000 were

248 Orosius has confused the playwright Terence (a popular author in late antiquity) with
the senator Q. Terentius Culleo. His error is probably the result of a careless reading of Livy,
30.45.5.

249 Orosius’s chronology is too early and contradictory. 546 AUC is 208 BC. The Second
Punic War ended in 553 AUC/20\ BC. Moreover, according to this account, the Second Punic
Wai‘ should have begun in 530 AUC, but at 4.14.1 Orosius dates its beginning to 534 At/C.

250 The so-called Second Macedonian War (200-196 BC). Flaminius obtained his
command in 556 At/C/198 BC.

251 Philip V of Macedon (221—179 BC). The most important battle was that at
Cynoscephalae fought in 557 At/C/197 BC.

252 King of Sparta from 207-192 BC.

253 The Battle of Cremona fought in 554 At/C/200 BC. Orosius has gai'bled the praetor’s
name which was Lucius Furius Purpurio.

254 The Battle of Cynoscephalae, the modem Chalkodonion in Thessaly.

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butchered, while Claudius records that 32,000 were killed.^^®

7. These differing figures found in these writers are clearly a mark of
deceit, and that deceit assuredly has its roots in flattery. Eor they took pains
to heap up the victor’s praise and extol the courage of their country either
for their contemporaries or for posterity. Besides had there heen no inquiry
about the numbers, none of any sort would have been given. 8. But if it
is glorious for a general and his country to have killed a great number of
the enemy, how much more joyful it is for a country, and for the general a
blessing, to be able to be seen to have lost none or only a few of their own
men. 9 . In this way, it is crystal-clear that a shameless method of reckoning
similar to that which increased the number of the enemy’s losses, also
reduced the numbers of losses suffered by their allies, or suppressed them
altogether.

10 . Sempronius Tuditanus was defeated in battle in Hither Spain^®^ and
killed along with the entire Roman army there.

11 . The consul Marcellus was defeated in Etruria by the Boii and lost a
large part of his army. Afterwards, the second consul, Eurius, came to his aid
and together they laid waste to the entire tribe of the Boii by Are and sword,
destroying them almost to the point of annihilation.

12 . In the consulate of Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Porcius
Cato,^^* Antiochus, the king of Syria, prepared for war against the Roman
people and crossed over from Asia into Europe.^^® 13 . At this time, Hannibal
was ordered to be brought to Rome by the Senate, because of the rumours
about him that were being spread among the Romans, saying that he was
inciting the war. Hannibal then secretly left Africa, fled to Antiochus, whom
he found vacillating at Ephesus, and soon spurred him on to wage war.

14 . It was at this time too that the law passed by the tribune Oppius
which forbade a woman to own more than half an ounce of gold, a coat of
many colours, or to ride in a carriage in the City, was repealed after being
in force for 20 years.

255 Polybius, 18.27.6. Orosius is refemng to Valerius Maximus, who composed a
Handbook of Memorable Deeds and Sayings in the reign of the emperor Tiberius, and to
Quintus Claudius Quadrigarius, an annalistic historian whosQ floruit was the 70s BC.

256 One of the two provinces in Spain in the republican period. Hither Spain was based
on Catalonia and extended westwards to Aragon and Old Castile. Tuditanus was defeated in
558 At/C/196 BC.

257 M. Claudius Marcellus and L. Furius Purpurio, consuls in 558 At/C/196 BC.

258 Consuls in 559 At/C/195 BC.

259 Antiochus III The Great’ 223-187 BC.

260 Orosius makes no comment here, but perhaps the reader is intended to see the law’s

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15 . In the second consulate of Publius Cornelius Scipio and that of
Tiberius Sempronius Longus,^®' 10,000 Gauls were slain near Milan and a
further 11,000 in a second battle. 5,000 Romans were cut down.

16 . The praetor Publius Digitius almost lost his entire army in Hither
Spain.The praetor Marcus Fulvius defeated the Celtiberians and their
neighbouring tribes, capturing their king.^®^ 17 . Minucius was brought into
very great danger by the Ligurians, being rescued with difficulty by the
courage of his Numidian cavalry after he had been surrounded by the enemy
in an ambush.^*’"^

18 . Scipio Africanus was sent with the other envoys to Antiochus, and
even had a friendly conversation with Hannibal there, but after his peace
negotiations broke down, he left the court.^®^

19 . In both Spains the praetors, Flaminius and Fulvius, waged horrible,
bloodstained wars against their inhabitants.^®'’

20 . In the consulate of Publius Cornelius Scipio and Marcus Acilius
Glabrio,^®^ Antiochus, despite having captured Thermopylae, whose forti-
hed site made him more secure from the fickle outcomes of war, was never¬
theless defeated after he engaged in battle with the consul Glabrio.^®* He
escaped from the fighting with difficulty along with a few of his men and
fled to Ephesus. 21 . He is said to have had an army 60,000 strong out of
whom 40,000 are said to have been killed and more than 5,000 captured.

The other consul, Scipio, fought against the Boii and killed 20,000 of
the enemy in battle.

22. The following year Scipio Africanus fought a naval battle with his
ally Eumenes, the son of Attains, against Hannibal who was at that time in

repeal as part of the moral weakening which befell at Rome after the fall of Carthage; see
4.23.9-10 below.

261 560 At/C/194 BC.

262 Orosius gives the wrong praenomen for Digitius - it was in fact Sextus. Digitius was
propraetor in Hispania Citerior in 561 At/C/193 BC.

263 Fulvius was praetor in the other Spanish province, Hispania Ulterior, ‘Further Spain’,
in 561 At/C/193 BC. Hispania Ulterior was centred on the Guadalquivir valley in modern
Andalusia and extended to the MediteiTanean coast to the south and towards Extremadura,
Portugal, and New Castile to the north and west.

264 Consul in 561 At/C/193 BC.

265 The meeting is said to have taken place at Ephesus; see Livy, 35.14.5-12. In fact, it is
doubtful whether Scipio was a member of the Roman legation. See Holleaux (1913).

266 In 562 At/C/192 BC. While Orosius’s hon'or of war is a feature of his entire work, the
impassioned description here may reflect his Spanish background.

267 563 ACC/191 BC.

268 The Battle of Magnesia, 190 BC.

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command of Antiochus’s Hannibal was defeated, driven into exile,

having lost all his army, while Antiochus sued for peace and returned of
his own volition Africanus’s son whom he had captured in unclear circum¬
stances, either while the youth was on a scouting mission or in the battle
itself.^’'®

23 . In Eurther Spain,the proconsul Lucius Aemilius was cut down by
the Lusitanians along with all his army.^’^

24 . Lucius Baebius was surrounded by the Ligurians as he advanced
towards Spain and was cut down along with all his army. It is generally
agreed that this slaughter was so great that not even a sole survivor was left
to tell of the defeat, and that it was, therefore, the people of Marseilles who
saw to it that this massacre was reported at Rome.^^^

25 . The consul Eulvius^’"^ crossed from Greece into Gallograecia, which
is now called Galatia,^^^ and penetrated as far as Mount Olympus^’® whither
all the Gallograeci had fled with their women and children. Here he fought
a bitter battle, for the Romans suffered heavy casualties as they were struck
from above by arrows, slingshots, rocks, and every other sort of projec¬
tile, before they Anally forced their way into hand-to-hand comhat with the
enemy. It is said that 40,000 Gallograeci were killed in this battle.

26 . The consul Marcius^’* advanced on the Ligurians, was defeated, lost
4,000 men, and, had he not swiftly fled back to his camp on his defeat,
would have suffered the same sort of massacre as Baebius had a short while
before at the hands of the same enemy.

27 . In the consulate of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Quintus Eabius
Laheo,^^® King Philip, who had executed some Roman envoys, earned his

269 The Battle of Side, 190 BC.

270 This incident happened during the Battle of Magnesia.

271 See n. 263.

272 An exaggeration by Orosius. Although Paulus did suffer reverses in 564 At/C/190 BC,
he went on to avenge them the following year with a victory; see Livy, 37.57—58.

273 L. Baebius Dives, praetor in 565 At/C/189 BC, died of his wounds at Marseilles; see
Livy, 37.57.1-2.

274 M. Fulvius Nobilior, consul in 565 At/C/189 BC.

275 An area of central Anatolia, including Ankara.

276 This is not the Mt Olympus of Thessaly, but the hill of that name in the Taurus
mountains near Antalya in Turkey; see 1.2.26.

277 Augustine, City of God, 3.21, mentions this campaign but assigns it to Gn. Manlius.
While Orosius dwells on the numbers killed, Augustine asserts that this was when Asian
decadence began to spread to Rome.

278 Q. Marcius Philippus, consul in 568 At/C/186 BC.

279 The consuls of 571 At/C/183 BC.

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pardon through the heartfelt pleas of his son, Demetrius, whom he had sent
as his ambassador.^*® 28. Philip at once murdered him as a supporter of
the Romans and a traitor to himself. His brother was an accomplice in this
murder perpetrated by his own father. The wretched Demetrius died by
poison, suspecting no ill from either of them.^*'

29. In the same year, Scipio Africanus, who had long been in exile from
his ungrateful City, died of disease at Amiternum.^*^ In these same days,
Hannibal, who was the court of Prusias, the king of Bithynia, committed
suicide by poison when his extradition was demanded by Rome, and
Philopoemen, the leader of the Achaeans, was captured and killed by the
Messenians.^*®

30. It was at that time that the island of Vulcan which had previously not
existed, suddenly emerged from the sea off Sicily to the amazement of all
and has endured down to the present day.^*'*

31. Quintus Fulvius Flaccus, the praetor in Hither Spain, put to flight
23,000 men and captured a further 4,000 in a great battle. 32. In Further
Spain, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus forced 105 towns that had been
emptied and reduced to ruins by wars to surrender. 33. That same summer
Lucius Postumius in Hither Spain killed 40,000 of the enemy in battle and
in the same province the praetor Gracchus stormed and captured a further
200 towns.

34. In the consulate of Lepidus and Mucius,^*® the savage tribe of the
Bastarnae who had been aroused by Philip’s son, Perseus, through hope of
gaining plunder and the possibility of crossing the Hister, were destroyed
without a battle being fought or being opposed by any foe. For it happened
that at that time the Danube, which is also called the Hister, was covered
by a thick layer of ice that allowed an easy crossing on foot. 35. But when
a great column, composed of a countless host of men and cavalry, began

280 The mention of the murder of these envoys is only found in Orosius.

281 Demetrius died in 180 BC.

282 A town which still retains its Roman name in Campania. Augustine, City of God, 3.21,
comments on Rome’s ingratitude to Scipio. For a modern assessment of Scipio, see Scullard
(1970) 210-43.

283 Philopoemen was the leader of the Achaean League. Orosius has a great love of
synchronised events. The parallelism of the deaths here is meant perhaps to point up various
morals. First, that the paths of glory lead but to the grave; second, that fame does not last even
for a single lifetime; and third, that earthly success and failure lead to the same end.

284 The modern Vulcano.

285 These campaigns in Spain were fought between 181 and 178 BC.

286 Consuls in 583 At/C/175 BC.

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to cross it in a single body, the frozen, icy crust, groaning beneath their
enormous weight and the beating of their marching feet, suddenly snapped
apart. The ice, now at long last broken and worn away, thus let the entire
column, whose weight it had carried for a long time, fall into the middle of
the river. It then resurfaced in pieces that got in the men’s way, drowning
them. Very few out of the entire tribe managed to struggle out on either
bank, and they had been ripped to shreds by the ice.

36. In the consulate of Publius Licinius Crassus and Gains Cassius
Longinus, the Macedonian War was fought.^®’ This ought to be ranked
among the great wars, as Rome was first supported by all Italy, then Ptolemy,
the king of Egypt,^®* along with Ariarathes of Cappadocia,^*® Eumenes of
Asia,^®® and Masinissa of Numidia,^®' while the Thracians and their king,
Cotys, and all the Illyrians along with their king, Gentius, supported Perseus
and the Macedonians.

37. Perseus confronted the consul Crassus as he advanced. Battle was
joined, and the Romans were defeated and put to flight in a pitiable fashion.
The following battle proved an equal disaster for both sides and they departed
to their winter quarters. 38. Perseus, after wearing down the Roman army’s
strength in a long series of battles, crossed over into Illyricum and captured
by arms the town of Sulcamum^®^ which was defended by a Roman garrison.
Some of the great host of Romans in this garrison he killed, others he sold
into slavery, while yet others he took back with him to Macedonia.

39. After this, Perseus was engaged and defeated by the consul, Lucius
Aemilius Paulus, who killed 20,000 of his infantry in battle.^®* The king
fled with his cavalry, but was immediately captured and paraded in triumph
before Paulus’s chariot along with his sons. He later died in custody at Alba.
40 . His younger son learnt to be a bronze-smith at Rome in order to alleviate
his poverty and lived out his life there. There were many other wars of
varying success fought against a host of peoples dwelling all over the world,
but I have passed over them for the sake of concision.

287 Consuls in 171 BC. The war is the Third Macedonian War, 171-168 BC.

288 Ptolemy VI Philometor, 180-145 BC.

289 Ariarates IV, 220-163 BC.

290 Eumenes II, king of Pergamum, not Asia, 197-159 BC.

291 Masinissa ruled Numidia, roughly modern Algeria, from 206 to 148 BC.

292 In fact Uscana (see Livy, 43.19.1). The site of the town is unknown.

293 The Battle of Pydna, 586 Af/C/168 BC.

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1 . 600 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Lucius
Licinius Lucullus and Aulus Postumius Alhinus,^*'* a great fear of the
Celtiberians overcame all Rome and no one, either soldier or commander,
dared to go to Spain. Then Puhlius Scipio, who was afterwards called ‘the
conqueror of Africa’,although he had already been allotted Macedonia,
put himself forward of his own free will to campaign in Spain. 2. So he set
off to Spain and slaughtered great numbers of people there, often behaving
more like a private soldier than a commander: for he fought and killed a
barbarian who challenged him to single combat.^^'’

3. The praetor Sergius Galba, however, was defeated in a great battle
against the Lusitanians and lost all his army, barely escaping himself along
with a few of his men.

4 . It was at this time that the censors decided that a stone theatre should
be built in the City. In order to stop this happening, Scipio Nasica delivered
a powerful speech, stating that this plan would be extremely harmful to a
fighting nation, as it would encourage idleness and licentiousness.^^’ He
swayed the Senate to such a degree that they not only ordered that every¬
thing which they had acquired for the theatre be sold, but also forbade
benches to be set up at the games.

5. So let our generation, to whom anything apart from the enjoyment of
their lusts is irksome, know this: that if they feel and admit themselves to
be weaker than their enemies, they ought to lay the blame on the theatre,
not the age they live in, 6. nor ought they to blaspheme the True God Who
has prohibited such things up to the present day, but to abhor their gods, or
rather their demons, who require these performances.’®* Their demands for
such sacrifices are sufficient proof of their malignity, for they feed no more

294 Orosius’s dating is three years awry. Lucullus and Albinus were consuls in 603
AUaiSl BC.

295 P. Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, the son of Lucius Aemilius Paulus and hence by
adoption the grandson of the Scipio Africanus who defeated Hannibal. He obtained his title
after the Third Punic War. For a modern study of Aemilianus, see Astin (1967).

296 This incident occurred in 151 BC at Intercatia, the modern Villalpando; see Livy, Per.
48; Florus, 1.33.11; and Pliny, Natural History, 37.4.9.

297 169 BC. Scipio was a curule aedile at the time. This minor magistracy was mainly
involved with municipal administration. The curule aediles were so-called because they were
allowed, unlike other aediles, to use the cural chair normally reserved for higher magistrates.

298 Theatrical performances in antiquity were normally held in honour of one of the pagan
gods; see Tertullian, On Entertainments (De Spectaculis), 10.

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on the blood of animals than they do on the mined virtue of men. 7. For then
there was no lack of enemies, famine, disease, or portents, indeed, they were
all there in abundance, but there were no theatres: places where, incredible
as it is to relate, men butcher their virtue as a sacrifice on the altar of luxury.

8. Once the Carthaginians thought it right to perform human sacrifices,
but they soon abandoned this practice that they had wickedly begun. The
Romans, however, demand to pay for their own damnation. 9 . This was
done in the past and is done now. It pleases them and they cry out that
it be done. They are like men who would be offended by the sacrifice of
animals from their own herd, yet rejoice in the destruction of their own
heart’s virtue. Those who think that the Christians are at fault ought rather
to be ashamed of Nasica, and not complain at us about enemies which they
have always had, but rather at that famous man about the theatre he stopped
them having.^^®

10 . In Spain, the praetor, Sergius Galba, criminally slew the Lusita-
nians who lived on the near side of the Tagus and had voluntarily surren¬
dered to him. He pretended that he was going to act for their well-being, but
surrounded them with troops and laid them all low when they were unarmed
and off their guard. This act of Roman treachery afterwards provoked a
great uprising throughout all of Spain.^°“

1 . 602 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Lucius
Censorinus and Marcus Manilius,^®' the Third Punic War broke out. After
the Senate had decided that Carthage must be destroyed, the consuls and
Scipio, who was at that time a military tribune, advanced to Africa and
occupied the camp of the Elder Africanus near Utica.

2. It was hither they summoned the Carthaginians and ordered them to
hand over their arms and ships without delay. The quantity of weapons that
were immediately handed over was such that all Africa could easily have
been armed with them. 3. But after the Carthaginians had handed over their

299 Orosius is attempting to portray Christianity as the natural culmination of Rome’s
tradition of austerity.

300 Galba’s actions led to him being prosecuted at Rome, though he was acquitted. His
behaviour spai'ked off Viriathus’s uprising against Rome.

301 Orosius’s dating is awry. Censorinus and Manlius were consuls in 605 At/C/149 BC.

302 The Castra Cornelia which survived at least to Caesar’s day; see Caesar, Civil War,
2.24; 2.25; 2.30; 2.37.

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arms, they were then ordered to abandon their city and move ten miles
inland. Their anguish made them desperate. They decided to defend their
city or be buried with, and under, her, elected the two Hasdrubals as their
leaders, 4 . and straightaway set out to manufacture arms, making up for
their lack of bronze and iron with gold and silver.^®

The consuls decided to attack Carthage. The town’s characteristics are
said to have been as follows: 5. it was surrounded by a wall 22 miles long
and almost entirely ringed by the sea, apart from the ‘jaws’ where three
miles lay open to the land. Here there was a wall of squared masonry 30
feet wide and 40 cubits high. 6. Its citadel, which is called the Byrsa, had a
circumference of a little over two miles. On one side, the city and the Byrsa
shared a common wall overlooking the sea. They call this part of the sea
‘The Pool’ as it is calm, being protected by a projecting mole.^®‘^

7. Although they destroyed a part of the wall with their siege engines, the
consuls were defeated and driven off by the Carthaginians. Scipio defended
them as they fled, forcing the enemy back within their walls. Censorinus
returned to Rome, while Manlius abandoned the siege of Carthage and
turned to deal with Hasdrubal’s army.

8. Meanwhile, Masinissa died and Scipio divided the kingdom of
Numidia between his three sons.^®^

When Scipio had returned to the outskirts of Carthage, Manlius stormed
and sacked the city of Tezaga.^“ 12,000 Africans were killed there and 6,000
captured. The Punic commander, Hasdrubal, Masinissa’s grandson, was
killed by his own people with broken fragments of benches in the council
chamber because he was suspected of treachery.

9 . The praetor Juvencius fought against the false Philip in Macedonia
and was killed in a great disaster encompassing the entire Roman army.^®’

303 One Hasdrubal was a general who had recently fought unsuccessfully against
Masinissa, the predatory king of Numidia, and had been condemned to death for his pains, but
had escaped. The other was, on his mother’s side, a grandson of Masinissa.

304 Orosius’s mixture of past and present tenses in his description of Carthage shows that
he had visited the city himself.

305 Masinissa died in 148 BC. His three sons were Gulussa, Mastanabal, and Micipsa.

306 The modern Henchir-Techga in Tunisia.

307 The defeat occuiTed in 148 BC. The false Philip was a Thracian named Andriscus who
posed as the son of Perseus. Orosius suppresses the fact that in the same year the praetor Q.
Caecilius Metellus defeated Andriscus, bringing the war to a successful conclusion.

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1 . 606 years after the foundation of the City, namely in the fiftieth year
after the Second Punic War, in the consulate of Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus
and Lucius Mummius,^°® Publius Scipio, the consul of the previous year,
advanced to Cothon,^“^ intending to destroy Carthage completely.^'° 2.
When he had fought there for six continuous days and nights, the depths of
despair brought to Carthaginians to surrender. They asked only that those
who had survived the disasters of the war be allowed to live on as slaves.

3. Eirst, a column of women came down from the citadel which was
pitiable enough, but it was followed by a much more wretched column of
their menfolk. Tradition says that the women numbered 25,000 and the
men 30,000. 4 . Their king,^" Hasdrubal, surrendered of his own free will.
The deserters who had occupied the temple of Aesculapius decided to fling
themselves into the fire and were consumed by it.^'^ HasdrubaTs wife,
possessing the sorrow of a man, but a woman’s wildness, cast herself and
her two sons with her into the midst of the inferno and so the last queen of
Carthage died in the same way as once had her first.^'^ 5. The city itself burnt
for seventeen days without ceasing, offering to its conquerors a pitiable
spectacle of the fickleness of the human condition.

6. 700 years after its foundation, Carthage was destroyed and every
stone in its walls reduced to dust. 7 . All the great host of captives, excepting
a few of the leading citizens, was sold into slavery. And so the Third Punic
War came to its end in under four years after it had begun.^*'*

8. But although I have investigated the matter carefully, though, admit¬
tedly, I am not a quick-witted man, the cause of the Third Punic War - the
thing that Carthage inflamed to such a degree that it was just to decree that
she be destroyed - has never been clear to me. What interests me most of all

308 146 BC, which is in fact 608 AUC.

309 This is the Punic term for a harbour. Here it indicates the famous circular harbour of
Carthage lying close to the Brysa hill.

310 As Orosius has said that the Second Punic War ended in 546 At/C, his interval of time
should be 60 years, not 50 as he states here. The date also contradicts what he has said about
the history of Carthage which he says was founded 72 years before Rome, 4.6.1, and endured
for 700 years, 4.23.6. This would date its fall on Orosius’s own prior reckoning to 629 AUC.
In actual fact, the gap is 55 years.

311 Hasdrubal was the chief magistrate of the town, not its king.

312 These were Roman deserters. The temple was probably that of the Punic god Eshmun.

313 i.e. Dido, see Virgil, Ae/ie/W, 4.504ft‘.

314 For a detailed discussion of the war, see Caven (1980) 273-94.

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is that if, as in previous conflicts, a self-evident reason and grievance against
a rising power inflamed them, there would have been no need for a debate.

9. But while some of the Romans proposed that Carthage had to be
destroyed in order to safeguard Rome’s continuing security, others declared
that Carthage ought to be allowed to exist in safety as she was in order
to ensure the continuing existence of Roman martial prowess, something
which had always been fostered by the suspicion that another city was her
rival, and in order that Roman vigour, which had always been schooled in
war, should not dissolve into feeble idleness, if Rome obtained her security
effortlessly. I think, therefore, that the cause stemmed not from an injury
done to them by the Carthaginians, but from the inconstancy of the Romans
as they began to decline into idleness.^'^ 10. If this is the case, why do
they blame on these Christian times their sluggishness and decay which
leaves them bloated on the outside and eaten away within? They are the
men who lost almost 600 years ago, as their wiser and more fearful compa¬
triots predicted, that great whetstone of their splendour and glory, namely
Carthage.^'®

11. And so I shall put an end to this volume, in case it should turn out that
while arguing too flercely about this matter, I should remove my opponents’
sluggishness for a moment, but then encounter mindless hostility where I
am unable to draw forth from them the insight which they need - though I
would be in no way afraid of confronting such hostility, if I could And some
hope of creating that deeper insight.

315 This idea is also found in Augustine, City of God, 2.18-18, who quotes Sallust, The War
against Catiline, 9. For a discussion of the metus punicus, the fear engendered by Carthage at
Rome, see Bonamente (1975).

316 cf. Augustine, City of God, 1.30.

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1.1 know that a number of men could be influenced after my description of
these events on the grounds that through the slaughter of many states and
nations Rome’s victories grew greater. Nevertheless, if they look carefully,
they will discover that the City suffered more harm than good. For so many
wars waged against slaves, her allies, her own citizens, or runaway slaves
ought not to be seen as of little account, as they yielded no fruits of victory,
but only great suffering.

2. But I shall ignore this fact in order that this period can seem to have
been just as they wish it to have been. At this point I think they will say,
‘What more blessed times were there than these in which there were never-
ending triumphs, famous victories, rich booty, glorious parades, and mighty
kings and long columns of conquered nations driven before the victor’s
chariot?’ 3.1 will reply briefly that they are accustomed to plead the case for
these times and I have written a tract about the same times, and it is agreed
that they concern the whole world, not just one city. See then that Rome’s
good fortune in her conquests is matched by the misfortune of those outside
Rome whom she conquers.

4 . How highly should we rate this scintilla of happiness, won at such a
cost, to which is ascribed the good fortune of a single city amid such a great
mass of misfortune which has laid the entire world in ruins? Or, if these
times are thought so happy because one city’s wealth increased, why should
they not rather be judged as the most unhappy of times in which mighty
kingdoms fell in the piteous devastation of many, well-governed nations?

5. Are perhaps these things were viewed differently at Carthage when
after 120 years,' during which at times she trembled at the disasters of war
and at others at the terms of peace, when as both a rebel and a suppliant

1 In fact, in Orosius’s account there are 123 years from the outbreak of the First Punic War
to the end of the Third Punic War.

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by turns, she swapped peace for war and war for peace, and finally the
whole town became one huge funeral pyre, as all her people in the depths of
despondency flung themselves indiscriminately into the fire? Now, a small
town stripped of her walls, part of her suffering is to hear of her former
greatness 7

6. Let Spain give her opinion. When for 200 years^ she watered her
own fields everywhere with her own blood, while she could neither repel
nor endure her persistent foe who, with no provocation, restlessly moved
as it were from door to door, and when in various towns and places,'* her
people, broken by the slaughter of war and emaciated from the hunger of
being besieged, killed their women and children and cured their sufferings
by cutting one another’s throats in mutual slaughter in a conclave of misery
- what then did she feel about these times?

7. Finally, let Italy herself speak. Why did she quarrel with, oppose,
and fight back against the Romans, who are one of her own, for 400 years,^
unless good times for Rome signalled bad times for herself, and that the
common good was harmed by Rome becoming the dominant power?

8. I need not ask what the countless nations of divers peoples, previ¬
ously long free, but then conquered in war, dragged from their homelands,
priced, sold, and scattered far apart into slavery,** would have preferred for
themselves at that time, what they thought of the Romans, or what was
their verdict on this period of history. 9.1 shall say nothing of those kings
of great wealth, resources, and glory, who had long enjoyed great power,
but were then captured, loaded with chains as slaves, forced under the yoke,
paraded before the victor’s chariot, and finally butchered in gaol.’ It would
be as stupid to ask their opinion, as it would be hard-hearted not to grieve
at their sufferings.

10. Now, I say, let us look now at ourselves, and the life that we have
chosen and with which we are comfortable. Our ancestors waged war and

2 Orosius is being highly disingenuous here. Carthage grew to be the largest town in the
Western empire, save Rome herself.

3 The figure of 200 years is repeated by Orosius at 6.21.1. The period involved begins with
Hannibal’s attack on Saguntum and ends with Augustus’s subjugation of Cantabria.

4 See 5.7.16 below.

5 See 5.22.1-4 below.

6 An echo of the fate of ancient Israel is present here.

7 The normal fate of an enemy leader paraded in a triumph at Rome was to be strangled in
the Tullianum, an underground prison located on the edge of the Capitol.

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wearied by it, sought peace and paid tribute: for tribute is the price of peace.*
11 . We pay tribute to avoid suffering war and for this reason have put in and
stayed at anchor in the port to which they hnally fled to escape the storms
of evil.

Therefore, I would look at our own days to see if they are happy.
Certainly, I think them happier than the past, for what our ancestors finally
chose for themselves, we have all the time. 12 . The tribulation of war that
wasted them away is unknown to us. We are born into, and grow old in,
that peace of which they had only the first taste after the rule of Caesar®
and the birth of Christ. What for them was a compulsory levy of slavery, is
for us a voluntary contribution for our defence. 13 . The enormous differ¬
ence between past and present can be seen in the fact that what Rome once
extorted from us at sword-point to satisfy her own extravagance, now she
contributes with us for the good of the state we share. And if anyone says
that the Romans were more tolerable enemies for our ancestors than the
Goths are for us, let him hear and discover how different the things going
on around him are to what he believes is the case.

14 . Once the entire world was ablaze with war: each province had its
own king, laws, and customs, nor was there any common fellow-feeling
as the different powers quarrelled with one another. What then could draw
together these scattered barbarian tribes whom even religion divided as they
had different sacred rites?

15 . If at that time someone, overcome by the burden of his sufferings,
abandoned his country along with its enemies, to what strange land could
he, a stranger, go? What people, who, in the main, were his enemies, could
he, an enemy, ask for pity? Whom could he, a man who had not been invited
in as an ally, nor attracted by a commonality of laws, nor feeling secure in
religion’s communion, trust on first meeting them? 16 . Or do Busiris, that
impious sacrificer of travellers who had the misfortune to reach Egypt,'®
the cruelties practised on strangers by the shores of Taurian Diana and the
still crueller rites found there," and the crimes of Thrace and Polymestor'^

8 Orosius speaks here from the view-point of a provincial.

9 i.e. Augustus.

10 See 1.11.2.

11 The Tauri were a Crimean tribe who indulged in human sacrifice to placate a goddess
identified as Diana in the classical world. Like the story of Busiris, this myth was common
currency in antiquity, most famously embodied in Euripides’ play Iphigenia in Tauris.

12 Polymestor, the king of Thrace, murdered Priam’s son Polydorus at the end of the Trojan
War in order to obtain the treasure sent with him. The most famous instance of the legend is
Euripides’ Hecuba. Orosius is likely to have known the legend from Virgil, Aeneid, 3.22ff.

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towards guests who were their blood-relatives give us too few examples of
this? And lest I seem to be lingering among events of the distant past, Rome
is my witness in the case of Pompey’s murder, and Egypt my witness in the
case of his murderer, Ptolemy.'^

1. However, when I flee at the first sign of any sort of trouble, I do this secure
in the knowledge that I have a place to which I can flee, for I encounter my
country, religion, and laws everywhere. 2. Now Africa has received me with
the liberality I expected when I confidently came to her.*'^ Now, as I say,
Africa has received me into her undisturbed peace, to her very bosom, under
laws common to both of us. A land of which it was once, and rightly, said:

It shuts up a desert Shore to drowning men

And drives us to the cruel Seas againd^

now opens her broad bosom with genuine goodwill to receive freely allies
who share her religion and common peace, freely inviting in the weary so
that she can succour them.

3. Because I come as a Roman and Christian to Christians and Romans,
I find my laws and nation in the broad sweep of the east, in the north’s
expanses, in the southern reaches, and in the safe refuges of the great
islands.'® 4. 1 do not fear my host’s gods, I do not fear that his religion will
bring my death, I have no land to dread where the resident is allowed to do
what he will and the rover not allowed to ask for what he needs: a place
where my host’s law is not my own. 5. The One God, loved and feared
by all, has ordained in these times when He wished to be acknowledged,
this united kingdom. Everywhere the same laws, subject to the One God,
hold sway. Wherever I should arrive as a stranger, I have no fear of being
suddenly attacked like a friendless man. 6. For, as I have said, as a Roman
among Romans, as a Christian among Christians, and as a man among men,
I can call on the state’s laws, a common knowledge of religion, and our

13 A reference to the murder of Pompey, 28 September 48 BC, when he fled to the Egypt
of Ptolemy XIII. See 6.15.27-28.

14 The ‘now’ of the text suggests that this is a reference to Orosius’s return to Africa after
he found himself unable to return to Spain rather than his original flight from Spain to Africa.

15 Yirgil, Aeneid, 1.540-41.

16 The list covers the four points of the compass as the ‘great islands’, Britain and Ireland,
lie in the west.

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common nature. For the short time that I am here,*^ I have all the earth as if it
were my homeland, for the place that is truly my homeland and which I love
is far from the earth. 7.1 have lost nothing, where I love nothing, and have
everything when He Whom I love is with me, especially because He, Who
is the same among all people, makes me not merely known, but a neighbour
to all, nor does He leave me in need/or the Earth and Fullness thereof are
His,^^ from which He has commanded that all be shared by all.

8. These are the blessings of our days: a peaceful present, hope for the
future, and a common refuge.'^ These things our ancestors never enjoyed
fully and because of this, they waged incessant wars, and being unable to
change their homes, they remained in them to be wretchedly slaughtered
or shamefully enslaved. This will become clearer and more obvious when
deeds of old are revealed in chronological order.

1. 606 years after the foundation of the City - that is in the same year in
which Carthage was destroyed - the ruin of Carthage was followed by the
destruction of Corinth in the consulate of Gnaeus Cornelius Lentulus and
Lucius Mummius.^® In this one short space of time, the piteous flames of
two of the most powerful towns lit up different parts of the world.

2. The praetor Metellus^' defeated the joint forces of the Achaeans and
Boeotians in two battles, the first at Thermopylae and the second in Phocis.

3. The historian Claudius records that 20,000 men were killed in the first
battle and 7,000 in the second.^^ Valerius and Antias agree that a battle was
fought in Achaea and that 20,000 Achaeans fell along with their leader.

17 i.e. Orosius’s earthly life, as opposed to his coming life in heaven.

18 A close paraphrase of Psalm 24.1.

19 Orosius has artfully transposed to Christianity the common pagan topos, found, for
example, in Aelius Aristides {To Rome {Ad Romam), 100), that the Roman Empire has made
the world one. However, his intention in so doing is not to supplant the notion that Rome is
the world’s unifier, but to make Christianity an integral part of this process in order to show
that Rome’s God-given destiny has always been to be a Christian empire. For a translation and
commentary on Aristides, see Oliver (1953).

20 Orosius’s dating is two years out; Lentulus and Mummius were the consuls of 608
AUC/U6 BC.

21 Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, praetor in 148 BC, who held a propraetorian
command in Greece until 146 BC. It is this command to which Orosius is referring.

22 The annalist Q. Claudius Quadrigarius who wrote in the 70s BC. Orosius is probably
citing him second-hand via Livy.

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Diaeus.^^ Although the Achaean Polybius was in Africa with Scipio at that
time, he could not ignore the disaster that was occurring in his homeland.
He states that there was one battle in Achaea, the Achaeans being led by
Critolaus,^"^ adding that Diaeus was recruiting troops from Achaea when
he was defeated along with his army by the praetor Metellus.^^ 4. We have
already listed a number of disagreements found among historians,^® about
which suffice it to say that the things uncovered here, a poorly noted note of
their lies, clearly show that men who differ even when recording events at
which they were present are hardly to be trusted in the rest of their accounts.

5. After the destruction of garrisons throughout Achaea, and while the
praetor Metellus was thinking of razing its abandoned cities to the ground,
the consul Mummius suddenly arrived at his camp with a few men. Straight¬
away he dismissed Metellus and stormed Corinth without delay. At that time
this town was by far the wealthiest in the entire world, as for many centuries
in the past it had been a workshop for all kinds of crafts and craftsmen and
a common marketplace for both Asia and Europe.

6. Mummius cruelly gave permission to plunder even to his prisoners
and so the entire town was filled with fire and slaughter to such a degree that
the fire surged up from the city walls narrowing to a single flame, as if came
from a furnace. Most of the population were put to the sword or consumed
by the flames, the rest were sold into slavery. After the city had been burnt
down, its walls were razed to their foundations and their stones ground to
dust. An enormous amount of booty was stolen.

7. Indeed, because of the great number and sorts of statues and idols
found in the burning city, gold, silver, bronze, and all metals melted at the
same time, and a new kind of metal was created. It is for this reason that to
this day, as the tradition has come down to us, things made of it, or in imita¬
tion of it, are called Corinthian bronze and Corinthian vases.

23 Orosius has here mistaken Valerius Antias, an historian of the first century BC, for two
separate individuals. This error is likely to have stemmed from a misreading of the now-lost
Livy, 52. Livy often cites Valerius, normally to disagree with him.

24 Critolaus was defeated by Metellus at Scarpheia in Locris.

25 Orosius has quoted Polybius at second-hand via Livy, 52.

26 At 4.20.7-9.

27 See Pliny, Natural Histories, 34.3.6 and Floms, 1.32.7, for Corinthian bronze.

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1. In Spain, during the same consulate, Viriatus, a shepherd and robber born
in Lusitania, began as a highwayman, then laid waste to the provinces there,
and finally by his defeat, rout, and subjugation of armies commanded by
both praetors and consuls caused great terror to all of Rome.^* 2. The praetor
Gaius Vetilius faced him as he wandered far and wide, passing through the
land between the Ebro and the Tagus, two great, widely separated rivers.
Almost all of Vetilius’s army was slaughtered to the point of utter annihila¬
tion, while the praetor himself, along with a few men, only managed to flee
with difficulty.^®

3. Viriatus then broke the praetor Gaius Plautius in a long series of
battles and put him to flight.^® After this, Claudius Unimammus, who had
been despatched with a great force against Viriatus in order to wipe out the
stain of Rome’s past humiliation, only made her disgrace more shameful.^'
4. Eor when he met Viriatus, he lost all the troops that he had brought with
him who were the flower of the Roman army. Viriatus set up a trophy of
Roman robes of state, fasces, and other insignia of office in the mountains
of his own country.5. At the same time, 300 Lusitanians fought a battle
against 1,000 Romans in a glen. Claudius tells us that 70 Lusitanians and
320 Romans fell. 6. After the triumphant Lusitanians had dispersed in safety,
one became greatly separated from his colleagues. He was surrounded by
cavalrymen, but though he was on foot, he ran through one of their horses
with his javelin and beheaded the trooper with a single blow of his sword.
In this way he struck them all with fear and walked away in a contemptuous
and leisurely fashion as they looked on.

7. In the consulate of Appius Claudius and Quintus Caecilius Metellus,^^
Appius Claudius fought the Salassian Gauls,^'* was defeated, and lost 5,000

28 A similar version ofViriatus’s rake’s progress is found in Florus, 1.33.15, and Eutropius,
4.16. The conceit derives from Livy, 52. For a detailed account ofViriatus’s life which asserts
that he was a Lusitanian aristocrat, not a peasant, see Pastor Munoz (2004).

29 Vetilius was praetor in 607 At/C/147 BC. He was ambushed near Tribula (the modern
Trevoens). Orosius is probably drawing on Livy, 52, at this point.

30 Praetor in 608 At/C/146 BC.

31 More correctly Unimanus, praetor in 609 At/C/145 BC.

32 This detail is taken from Florus, 1.33.16. The mountain is probably the so-called Mons
Veneris in central Spain. Its location is uncertain.

33 Consuls in 611 At/C/143 BC.

34 This tribe lived in the Val d’Aosta.

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men. The battle was rejoined and he then killed 5,000 of the enemy.But
when he sought a triumph according to the law which, as then constituted,
stated that anyone who had killed 5,000 of the enemy was entitled to hold
a triumph, he was refused because of the losses he had suffered in the first
battle. He then held a triumph at private expense in an infamous display of
shamelessness and ambition.^®

8. In the consulate of Lucius Caecilus Metellus and Quintus Fabius
Maximus Servilianus,^^ among the other prodigies seen at Rome was a
hermaphrodite.^* It was thrown into the sea by order of the haruspices,^^
but the performance of this profane act of expiation served no purpose, for
so great a plague suddenly arose that at first there were not enough under¬
takers to conduct funerals, and soon there were none at all. Great houses
were left empty of the living, but full of the dead. Within there were great
inheritances, but nowhere was an heir to be found. 9. In the end, it was not
merely impossible to live in the City, but even to approach it, so horrendous
was the stench exuding through the whole City from the rotting corpses
found in their houses and beds.

10. The cruel expiation that through one man’s death opened up a way
for men to die,"^° finally taught the Romans how wretched and meaningless
it had been, and they felt shame in the midst of their sufferings. For the
sacrifice had been held to ward off coming disaster - and the plague had
followed on its completion, finally subsiding after it had spent its corrupting
force in accordance with secret laws, and without the need for any more
expiating sacrifices. 11. Now if the haruspices, those masters of deceit, had
held the ceremony when the force of the disease was waning, as is their
custom, there can be no doubt that they would have claimed the glory for

35 Orosius suppresses the fact that after the initial defeat, the decemviri consulted the
Sibylline Books which recommended that a sacrifice be made on enemy temtory. This was
done, and the Romans were then triumphant; see Livy, Per. 53. This anecdote is also found in
Julius Obsequens, 21. Obsequens compiled his Book of Prodigies {Liber de Prodigiis) from
Livy’s history. He was probably active in the mid-fourth century AD.

36 Claudius’s triumph was a by-word for extravagance and an'ogance; see Cicero, Speech
in defence of Caelius {Pro Coelio), 34; Valerius Maximus, 5.4.6; Suetonius, Tiberius, 2.

37 Consuls in 612 AUCIUI BC.

38 Orosius appears to have transposed this account of the hermaphrodite and the plague
that followed to Rome from Luna (near the modern Sarzana in Etruria); see Julius Obsequens,
22. Death by drowning was the normal fate of such prodigies.

39 The haruspices (lit. gut-gazers) were a prestigious college of diviners at Rome, hence
Orosius’s extreme hostility towards them.

40 Reading viam mortibus hominum morte hominis instruens with Zangemeister and Torres
Rodriguez. Amaud-Lindet reads mortibus hominem morte hominis instruens.

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bringing back health to the city for themselves, their gods, and rites. And so,
the wretched City, wrongly pious to the point of sacrilege, was made sport
of hy their lies from which it could not escape.'^'

12. The consul Eabius fought against the Lusitanians and Viriatus,
driving off the enemy and freeing the town of Buccia which Viriatus was
besieging.'^^ He accepted its unconditional surrender along with that of
many strongholds. Then he perpetrated a crime that would have disgusted
even the furthest-flung barbarians of Scythia, let alone the Roman sense of
fidelity and moderation. He cut off the hands of 500 of their leading men
whom, in accordance with the law of surrender, he had summoned in order
to form an alliance with him.'*^

13. The following year’s consul, Pompey, advanced into the lands of the
Numantines and retreated after suffering a great disaster, for not only was
almost his whole army destroyed, hut many nobles who were serving with
him were also killed."'"^

14. Viriatus, after harrying Roman armies and generals for fourteen
years, was killed by a plot formed by his own people. It was in this matter
alone that the Romans behaved nobly towards him, for they judged his
assassins unworthy of a reward."*^

15. Now, not only at this point, but frequently in what I have already
said, I have been able to weave into my account the complex wars of the
East which rarely begin or end without criminal acts, but the crimes of the
Romans with which we are now dealing were so great that those of other
peoples can be justly ignored.

16. At this time Mithridates, the Parthian king who was sixth in line
from Arsaces, defeated the prefect Demetrius, entered the city of Babylon,

41 Perhaps Orosius here wants his readers to see Rome as an essentially pious but deceived
city. She is held captive here because Christianity had not yet exposed the haruspices as liars.

42 Q. Fabius Maximus Servillianus, consul in 142 BC. ‘Buccia’ is probably a garbled
version of Tucci - the modem Martos in Andalusia

43 Orosius’s account of this incident betrays his Spanish background and is in sharp
contrast to that of Valerius Maximus, 2.7.11, who portrays it as the just punishment of fugitives
and deserters.

44 Q. Pompeius, consul in 613 At/C/141 BC. Orosius suppresses his successes against the
Numantines’ neighbours, the Termestini (see Livy, Per. 54), nor does he mention that Pompey
made a treaty with the Numantines which was rejected at Rome, though later at 5.4.21 he
confusingly alludes to it.

45 Viriatus was murdered in 139 BC. Orosius follows Livy, Per. 54, Floms, 1.33.15, and
Eutropius, 4.16, in stating that he had fought Rome for fourteen years. In fact, his campaigns
lasted for eight years.

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occupied all its territory in triumph, and went on to subdue all the peoples
who live between the Hydaspes and Indus rivers."''’ He also extended his
bloodstained rule to India. 17. When Demetrius marched against Mithri-
dates a second time, he was defeated and captured."'’ After he was captured,
a certain Diodotus and his son, Alexander, usurped his throne and the royal
title. 18. Afterwards, Diodotus killed his son, who had shared in the dangers
of seizing the kingdom, to avoid sharing the throne with him."'*

19. In the consulate of Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Gains Hostilius
Mancinus,"** a variety of prodigies occurred, and were dealt with in the
traditional manner to the best of the Romans’ abilities. But things did not
always turn out well for those watchers of events and devisers of lies, the
haruspices.

20. For the consul Mancinus, after assuming command of the army at
Numantia from Popilius,^" fought all his battles so badly and was reduced to
such a degree of despair that he was forced to make a highly shameful treaty
with the Numantines.®' 21. Although a short time before Pompey too had
also made an equally dishonourable treaty with these same Numantines,®’
the Senate ordered that the treaty be abrogated and Mancinus handed over
to the Numantines. He was stripped, his hands bound behind his back,
and set before the gates of Numantia. There he remained until nightfall,
abandoned by his own people, yet not taken in by the enemy, offering a
pitiable spectacle to both sides.

46 Mithridates I ‘the Great’. The Demetrius concerned is Demetrius I Soter, not a prefect
but the king of Syria 162-150 BC.

47 Orosius has confused two Demetriuses. This is Demetrius II Nicator, king of Syria
145-139 BC and 129-125 BC.

48 Orosius’s account of these events, derived from Livy, 52 and 55, is confused. Diodotus
Tryphon ‘the Idler’, commander of the garrison in Apamea, proclaimed the son of Alexander
Balas as king in Antioch in 145 BC. The pretender took the name of Antiochus VI. Demetrius
failed to deal with this rebellion before he marched east to fight the Parthians. He was captured
by the Parthians in 139 BC and it was then that Diodotus killed ‘Antiochus VI’, who was not
his own son as Orosius states.

49 Consuls in 617 At/C/137 BC.

50 M. Popillius Laenas, proconsul in 138 BC who suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of
the Numantines; Livy, Per. 55.

51 Orosius suppresses Livy’s account of the ill omens that preceded Mancinus’s departure
for Spain; see Livy, Per. 55. The treaty is noted briefly by Augustine, City of God, 3.21.

52 See 5.4.13 above, though Orosius neglects to mention the treaty.

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1. My pain forces me to cry out at this point. Why, Romans, do you falsely
attribute to yourselves the great names of lustice, Good Eaith, Courage,
and MercyLearn the truth from the Numantines. 2. Was there need of
courage? The Numantines won the hght. Was Good Eaith required? The
Numantines, believing that others would act as they did, released those
whom they could have killed after the treaty was made. 3. Did Justice have
to be put to the test? It was - by the silence of the Senate, when the Numan¬
tines’ ambassadors demanded that the peace be kept inviolate or that those
whom they had freed alive as a pledge of that peace be returned to them. 4.
Must we look at mercy? They gave enough proof of this when they spared
the lives of the enemy’s army and when they did not take back Mancinus
to punish him.

5. My question is ought Mancinus, a man who warded off the impending
slaughter of his defeated army with the shield-boss of the treaty he made,
and who preserved the endangered resources of his country for better days,
to have been handed over at all? 6. If the treaty he made displeased them,
why were the troops redeemed on such conditions? When they returned,
why were they received? And when they were demanded back, why were
they not returned? On the other hand, if they thought it right to save their
troops on whatever terms possible, why was Mancinus, who had made this
treaty, the only one to be handed over?

7. In the recent past, Varro had forced his reluctant colleague Paulus
to rush into battle prematurely, hurling forward his trembling troops. At
Cannae, a place now notorious for the disaster Rome suffered there, he
did not draw up his men for battle, but set them face to face with death. It
was solely his impatience, on which Hannibal had long relied to bring him
victory, that cost the lives of more than 40,000 Roman soldiers.^'* 8. Einally
this shameless man, on the death of his colleague Paulus, and what a man
he was, had the nerve to return almost alone to the city - and got a reward
for his shamelessness. 9. Eor the Senate publicly thanked him because he
had not despaired of the republic, though it was he himself who had plunged
the republic into despair. 10. But later, Mancinus, who had taken pains that

53 A strong reminiscence of Augustus’s clipeus virtutis, or ‘shield of virtue’. This was
awarded to the emperor by the Senate in 27 BC and recorded Augustus’s four cardinal virtues
of justice, piety, courage, and clemency. It was thereafter hung permanently in the senate-
house.

54 See 4.16.2.

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he should not lose his army after the fortunes of war had led to it being
surrounded, was condemned to be handed over to the enemy by that same
Senate.®^

11. So Romans, you disapproved of Varro’s actions, but because of
the circumstances forgave them, yet approved of Mancinus’s actions, but
through circumstances annulled them. By acting like this, you have from
the very beginning brought it about that no citizen thinks to help such an
ungrateful race and that no enemy places any faith in such a faithless people.

12. Meanwhile, Brutus in Further Spain crushed an army of 60,000
Galicians who had come to help the Lusitanians. The battle was hard and
desperate, even though Brutus had surrounded his enemy when they were
off their guard. 50,000 were killed in this battle and 6,000 taken prisoner; a
few others managed to flee.^®

13. In Hither Spain, the proconsul Lepidus, although the Senate forbade
it, persistently tried to conquer the Vaccaei, a harmless tribe that had sued
for peace.Soon he was involved in a great disaster and paid the price
for his wicked persistence. Almost 6,000 Romans were justly slain in this
unjust war, the remainder had their camp taken from them and even lost
their own weapons, but escaped. 14. This disaster suffered under Lepidus’s
command was no less disgraceful than that suffered under Mancinus.^*

So let them now say that these were happy times for them, and I am not
speaking of the Spaniards who had been routed and put to llighT^ so many
times in battle, but, indeed, of the Romans who were so ground down by
unending disasters and defeated so very many times. 15. In order not to be
reproachful, I shall not go over how many of their praetors, commanders,
consuls, legions, and armies were lost, but merely return again to one point:

55 Orosius takes a rather more forgiving attitude towards Mancinus here in order to make
his point, than he did at 5.4.19.

56 D. Junius Brutus celebrated his triumph for this victory in 136 or 135 BC and was
awarded the cognomen ‘Callaicus’ for his campaigns. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1875 (= 140
BC), says that Brutus subdued Spain ‘as far as the Ocean’. It is odd, given Orosius came from
this ai'ea, that he does not include this comment in his account.

57 A Celtiberian tribe centred round Burgos and Valladolid.

58 M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina, consul in 137 BC, and proconsul in 136 BC, when he
conducted this campaign on his own initiative. He was subsequently recalled and fined. The
sentiment that his disaster was as great as that suffered by Mincinus is derived from Livy, 56.

59 Readingwith Amaud-Lindet. The majority reading, followed by Zangemeister,
fatigati, ‘exhausted’ is also possible. However, the two near synonyms, pulsati and fugati
parallel those used of the Romans which follow, suhacti and superati, and this reading seems
more consonant with Orosius’s style.

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namely that the Roman soldier was so gripped by unreasoning fear that he
was not able to stand his ground or steel his soul to make even an offer of
battle, and soon he fled on simply seeing a Spaniard, if he seemed hostile,
thinking himself defeated almost before the enemy was seen.

16 . Erom this it is clear that both sides thought these times wretched:
the Spanish because, although they were able to conquer, they had, against
their will, to abandon their pleasant life of leisure and endure wars that
came from abroad; the Romans because the more shamelessly they imposed
themselves on the peace of others, the more shamefully they were defeated.

1 . In the consulate of Servius Eulvius Elaccus and Quintus Calpurnius
Piso,“ a slave woman bore a son at Rome with four feet, four hands, four
eyes, as many ears, and two sets of male members.

2. In Sicily Mount Etna spewed out and poured forth vast amounts of
lava which flowed headlong like a torrent over the nearby lowlands, burning
them up with its flames. More distant regions too were scorched by hot
cinders that flew far and wide in a cloud of thick smoke. This sort of horror,
which is native to Sicily, normally does not portend troubles, but rather
brings them.

In the fields of Bononia wheat grew on trees.®'

3. A slave rebellion then arose in Sicily. The numbers of slaves involved,
who were drawn up like an army in great force, made it so serious and
bitter that, quite apart from the Roman praetors who were utterly routed,
it terrified the consuls. 4 . Eor 70,000 slaves were said to be in the army of
the conspirators, except in the town of Messana, which kept its slaves, who
were liberally treated, at peace.

5. Sicily found herself in an even more wretched state because of this

60 Consuls in 619 At/C/135 BC.

61 The eruption of Etna and the tree-wheat at Bononia, the modern Bologna, ai‘e found in
Julius Obsequens, 26. Obsequens also mentions a prodigious birth, but lists the deformity as a
boy lacking an anus. Orosius is careful to give a naturalistic explanation for what the enaption
presages. He has taken the prodigy of the child with too many organs from Obsequens’ list of
prodigies for the previous year (618 At/C/136 BC). Obsequens connects this with Lepidus’s
defeat by the Vaccaei. Oddly, Pliny says the only instance of ‘tree-wheat’ he knows of occurred
in 202 BC; see Pliny, Natural History, 18.46.166, and Varro, On Country' Matters {De Re
Rustica), 1.9.4.

62 See Livy, Per. 56. The rebellion was suppressed by G. Fulvius Flaccus, consul in 134
BC.

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fact too: namely that while being an island, she never had laws which fitted
this state, falling now into the power of tyrants and then into that of slaves.
The formers’ evil rule produced the slaves, while the latter with perverse
presumption reversed who was slave and who was free.® This was made
all the worse as, since she is surrounded by sea on all sides, she cannot
easily drive out troubles grown from within. 6. She nursed a viper’s brood
for her own downfall, fed by her own lust, and destined to triumph through
her own death.® The trouble caused by a slave rebellion is proportionately
more violent as it is rarer than other disturbances, for a crowd of freemen are
moved by ideas of helping their country, but one of slaves with the notion
of destroying it.

1 . 620 years after the foundation of the City, when the peace made at
Numantia had loaded the Romans’ brows with almost more shame than the
one once struck at the Caudine Forks,® Scipio Africanus was made consul by
a unanimous vote of the tribes and sent with an army to attack Numantia.®
2. Numantia lies in Hither Spain, not far from the Vaccaei and Canta¬
brians on the edge of Gallaecia in the borderlands of the Celtiberians.® 3.
This town had not only resisted 40,000 Roman troops with only 4,000 of
her own for fourteen years, but had even defeated and forced a shameful
treaty on them.®*

4 . When Scipio Africanus arrived in Spain, he did not immediately
march on his enemy with the aim of trapping them off their guard. For

63 See 2.14.1-6.

64 The image of the snake’s suicidal generation, originally found in Herodotus, 3.109, is
taken from Pliny, Natural History, 10.62.169-70. It became a popular image in early Christian
writing, being found in Clement of Alexandria, Miscellany (Stromata), 4.16; Prudentius, On
the Genesis of Sin (Hamartigenia), 581-636; Ambrose, On Tobit (De Tobia), 12.41; Basil of
Caesarea, 3'‘^ Homily on Psalm 14 (Homilia 3 in Psalm 14)', and John Chrysostom, Homily on
Matthew (Homilia in Matteum), 2.2.

65 This sentiment is found in Fionas, 1.33.7. Orosius’s account of Numantia is heavily
informed by Florus’s version of events.

66 Orosius’s date is correct. The Scipio Africanus here is the adopted son of the victor of
Zama and more commonly known as Scipio Aemilianus. He was elected consul in 134 BC.

67 The late Roman province located in NW Spain, see Torres Rodriguez (1949 and 1953).
The ancient Numantia is found by the village of Garray, not far from the modern Soria. After
its destruction the town was rebuilt, but appears to have been abandoned in the mid-fourth
century AD.

68 This datum is found in Livy, Per. 54, and Fionas, 1.34.2.

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he knew that this race never allowed their body or spirit to relax to the
degree that they would not prove, even in their everyday way of living,
to be stronger in war than even carefully-trained opponents. Scipio there¬
fore exercised his troops in their camp for a period of time as if they were
attending a gymnasium. 5. Although he spent part of the summer and all the
winter in this way, and did not offer battle even once, his hard work brought
him little by way of reward.

6. Eor, when the moment of battle came, the Roman army was
overwhelmed by the Numantines’ charge and turned in flight. Einally,
angered by the consul, who flung himself into their midst, rebuking and
threatening them, and holding them back with his hands, they turned on the
enemy again and forced their foe, who had put them to flight, to flee.® It is
difficult to believe the account - the Romans put the Numantines to flight
and saw this while they themselves fled. 7. For this reason although Scipio
was delighted and rejoiced in his victory, which had exceeded his expecta¬
tions, he nevertheless admitted that he dared not continue the battle further
against them.

8. So he decided that he should take advantage of his unexpected
success, besieged the town, and even surrounded it with a ditch 10 feet in
width and 20 feet deep.™ 9. He then fortified the rampart he had built out
of stakes with a large number of towers, so that wherever the enemy should
attack it when they sallied forth, he would fight not as the besieger against
the besieged, but rather as the besieged against the besieger.

10 . Numantia is set on a hill not far from the river Duero, and surrounded
by a wall three miles in circumference, although there are some who say
that it occupies a small area and has no walls. 11 . Because of this discrep¬
ancy, it is likely that the Numantines enclosed this larger area to feed and
guard their herds and even to till the land when troubled by war, while they
themselves occupied only a small, naturally fortified, citadel. If they had
acted otherwise, such a large city would not have given protection to such a
small group of men, but would rather have endangered them.

12 . After a long siege, the Numantines were decimated by hunger
and offered to surrender if they were given fair terms, often even asking
for the chance of a fair fight so that they could die like men. 13 . Finally,

69 Floms’s account, 1.34.11, of the battle dwells on the effects of Scipio’s discipline and
makes no mention of the Romans’ wavering.

70 For Scipio’s siegeworks, see Schulten (1945), Campbell (2006) 122-28, and Dobson
(2008).

71 A reference to Floras, 1.34.2.

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they all made a sudden sally out of two gates, having drunk beforehand a
deep draught not of wine, as that country does not bear vines, but a potion
manufactured from wheat which they call ‘hot-stuff’ because it is made by
being heated.’^ 14 . The wet grain is made to germinate by heating it. It is
then dried, ground into flour, and mixed with a sweet juice. As it ferments,
it becomes bitter and produces the heat that goes with drunkenness. Fired up
by this potion after their long hunger, they came out to battle.

15 . The struggle was long, flerce, and dangerous for the Romans who,
had they not been fighting under Scipio, would have again shown that
they were lighting against the Numantines by fleeing from them.^^ When
their bravest men had fallen, the Numantines withdrew from the battle, but
returned to their town in good order, not in flight. They refused to accept the
bodies of the dead that were brought to them for burial.^''

16 . As they were all doomed to die, in a last frenzy of desperation they
barred the gates of their city and set Are to it while they were still inside, all
alike perishing by poison, sword, or fire.^^

17 . The Romans gained nothing from defeating these men, save their
own security. Indeed, when Numantia fell, they considered that the Numan¬
tines had escaped rather than that they had defeated them. 18 . The victor’s
chain held not one Numantine captive and Rome saw no reason for which
she could grant a triumph. These poor folk had no gold or silver that would
have been able to survive the Are, and the Are had destroyed their arms and
clothing.^®

1 . While these things were going on at Numantia, the sedition of the Gracchi
was taking place at Rome. After destroying Numantia, Scipio made peace
with the rest of the Spanish tribes. He asked Thyresus, a Celtic chieftain, how

72 A form of beer, see Pliny, Natural History, 22.82.164. Orosius derives the name of this
drink, caelia, from the verb calefacere, to heat. Floras only mentions the drink in passing.
Orosius’s details may be born of personal experience, but his comments on the lack of wine in
Spain are false and perhaps intended to emphasise the Numantines’ lack of luxuria.

73 This detail is mentioned neither by Livy nor Floras.

74 These details of the battle and its aftermath are not mentioned by either Livy or Floras.

75 See Livy, Per. 59.

76 These sentiments on Rome’s empty victory ai‘e drawn from Floras, 1.34.17. Floras says
that the triumph was only over the town’s name. Contrary to Orosius’s implications, a triumph
was indeed held by Scipio in 132 BC; see Livy, Per. 59. For a discussion of Numantia and its
impact on Spanish historiography, see Jimeno Martinez and De La Torre Echavarri (2005).

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Numantia had at first avoided defeat for so long and how then it had been
overthrown. Thyresus replied, ‘Concord made it invincible, discord was its
downfall.’^’ 2. The Romans took this as advice for, and about, themselves,
as they had just been told that the whole City was seething with discord.

After Carthage and Numantia were destroyed, beneficial co-operation to
look to the future died at Rome and there arose instead shameful political
in-fighting born of personal ambition.’*

3. Gracchus, a tribune of the plebs, was furious at the nobility because
he had been listed as one of the architects of the Numantine treaty.’® He
therefore decided that land which had been held up to that time in private
hands should be divided up among the people.*® He deprived Octavius, a
tribune of the plebs who opposed him, of his power and appointed Minucius
as his successor.*' These were the reasons that anger took hold of the
Senate and arrogance, the people. 4. By chance, it happened that Attains,*’
Eumenes’ son, died at this moment and had ordered in his will that the
Roman people succeed as heir to his Asian empire.** Gracchus, seeking to
buy public popularity, passed a law that Attalus’s money be distributed to
the public.*'' Nasica opposed this law and Pompey promised that he would
indict Gracchus as soon as he left his magistracy.**

77 This anecdote is only found in Orosius. It is difficult to see what relationship it bears to
his account of Numantia where disunity among the Numantines does not feature at all.

78 cf. Florus 1.34.19 where Numantia is seen as the turning point in the decline of Roman
public morality. For a modern discussion of the impact of the Numantine War on Roman
politics, see Astin (1967) 155-60.

79 Tiberius was elected tribune in 133 BC. The treaty concerned is that made by Mancinus,
see Florus, 2.2.2-3. Florus, however, is prepared to concede that Tiberius may have acted for
the common good, something Orosius will not countenance. This negative attitude, which
differs markedly from the more sympathetic attitude of Augustine (see City of God, 3.24), is
drawn from Livy, 58.

80 In fact the land concerned was public land that had been encroached on by wealthy
landowners; however, Orosius may not have known this.

81 Orosius seems to have confused this tribune, named Mucius by Plutarch, Tiberius
Gracchus, 13.2, and Q. Mummius by Appian, Civil Wars, 54, with the tribune who succeeded
Tiberius’s brother, Gaius, as tribune in 121 BC.

82 Attains III Philometor, king of Pergamum 139-133 BC.

83 Attalus’s bequest is noted by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1887 (= incorrectly, 128 BC). In
contrast to Orosius’s extended account, Jerome makes no mention of the Gracchi at any point
in his Chronicle.

84 In fact, Gracchus wanted the money to finance his commission to redistribute the confis¬
cated land. This had been starved of funds by the vengeful Senate.

85 P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul in 138 BC and Pontifex Maximus. The identity of this
Pompey is not clear, but is likely to be Q. Pompey, consul in 141 BC.

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1 . When Gracchus strove to remain tribune of the plebs for the following
year*® and kindled sedition among the people on the day of the elections,
the nobility were enflamed by Nasica and, using broken bench ends as their
weapons, put the plebs to flight. 2. Gracchus had his cloak ripped off and
was knocked over by a bench while fleeing along the steps which lie above
the arch of Calpurnius. He was killed by another blow of a club to his head
as he tried to get up again. 3.200 others were killed in this seditious uprising.
Their bodies were thrown into the Tiber, which is where the unburied corpse
of Gracchus rotted away.*’

4 . Meanwhile, the slave war that had arisen in Sicily went on to infect many
other provinces far and wide.** 450 slaves were crucifled at Minturnae*® and
up to 4,000 slaves were crushed by Quintus Metellus and Gnaeus Servilius
Caepio at Sinuessa.®° 5. A slave rebellion in the mines at Athens was also put
down by the praetor Heraclitus. On Delos too, the slaves attempted to rise
again, but their actions were anticipated and crushed by the citizenry. It was
from that first flare-up of trouble on Sicily that sparks, as it were, shot out
and kindled these divers fires. 6. In Sicily the consul Piso,^' who succeeded
the consul Fulvius, stormed the town of Mamertium^’ where he killed 8,000
runaways. Those whom he was then able to capture, he crucified. 7. He was
succeeded by the consul Rutilius who took Tauromenium^* and Henna,^"^ the
runaways’ strongest refuges, by force.®® More than 20,000 slaves are said
to have been slaughtered at that time.®® 8. Certainly such a war as this had
tragic, complex causes. Their masters would have perished had they not
marched on the insolent slaves with the sword, but as regards the terrible

86 This was not technically illegal, but was a flagrant breach of accepted constitutional
practice.

87 See Livy, Per. 58.

88 See Livy, Per. 58, 59.

89 The modem Trajetto.

90 The modern Mondragone.

91 L. Calpurnius Piso, consul in 621 Af/C/133 BC.

92 The modern Messana.

93 The modem Taormina.

94 The modern Castro Giovanni in central Sicily. Floms, 2.7.8 attributes this victory to
Perperna.

95 Orosius has garbled the consul’s name which was in fact Rupilius; see Livy, Per 59.

96 The uprising in Sicily is noted by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 1890 (= 125 BC), who
comments that the besieged slaves were forced to indulge in cannibalism. This detail has been
suppressed by Orosius.

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losses in the fighting and the even worse prizes from victory, the victors lost
as much as numbers of the vanquished that perished.®’

1 . 622 years after the foundation of the City,®* the consul and high priest,
Publius Licinius Crassus, was despatched with a superbly equipped army
against Attalus’s brother, Aristonicus, who had invaded Asia, which had
been left in his brother’s will to Rome.®® 2. Crassus was supported by a
group of powerful kings, namely Nicomedes of Bithynia, Mithridates of
Pontus and Armenia, Ariarathes of Cappadocia, and Pylaemenes of Paphla-
gonia, and was reinforced by a great number of their troops.Nevertheless,
when battle was joined, he was defeated.'®' 3. When, after great bloodshed,
his army turned to flee, Crassus was himself surrounded by the enemy and
nearly captured. He then poked the crop, which he used on his horse, into
the eye of a Thracian, and the barbarian, blazing with pain and anger, ran
Crassus through the side with his sword. In this way having chosen the
manner of his death, he avoided both disgrace and slavery."”

4 . The consul Perpenna,'®* who had succeeded Crassus, flew with all haste
to Asia on hearing of Crassus’s death and the disaster suffered by the Roman
army. He attacked Aristonicus by surprise, while he was feasting to celebrate
his recent victory and away from all his troops, putting him to flight. 5. He
besieged the city of Stratonice'®* to which Aristonicus had fled, and starved
him into surrender. The consul Perpenna became ill and died at Pergamum,
while Aristonicus was strangled in gaol at Rome by order of the Senate.

6. In the same year, the miserable life of Ptolemy, the king of Alexan-

97 In other words the victors destroyed their own property. Here again, Orosius shows that
he has no qualms about the institution of slavery per se.

98 Orosius is one year out; these events happened in 623 At/C/131 BC.

99 See Livy, Per. 59. Aristonicus was Attalus’s half-brother and claimed the throne on
his death. His support was drawn mainly from the rural non-Greek-speaking population of
Pergamum.

100 Nicomedes II of Bithynia (149-128 BC), Mithridates V Eupator of Pontus (150-120
BC), Ariarathes V of Cappadocia (163-130 BC), Pylaemenes II of Paphlagonia (/?. c.l30 BC).

101 At Levke near Foca in Turkey.

102 See Fionas, 1.35.5, for this story, which perhaps derives ultimately from Livy, 59. Florus
incorrectly gives Crassus’s rank as that of a praetor. Perhaps the reader is meant to contrast
Crassus’s behaviour here with that of the Athenian general Nicias in Sicily; see 2.15.22.

103 M. Perpema, consul in 130 BC. Orosius has slightly garbled his name. For Perperna’s
campaigns, see Livy, Per. 59.

104 Normally Stratonicea, the modem Eskihisar in Turkey.

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dria, came to a still more miserable end. He had committed incest with,
and then married, his own sister. Finally, he divorced her - an act more
disgraceful than his marriage of her had been.*®^ 7. He then married his
step-daughter, that is to say the child of his sister and wife, and killed both
his own son whom he had sired by his sister and his brother’s son as well.
This litany of incest and parricide made him hated by the Alexandrines and
he was expelled from his kingdom.

8. At the same time, Antiochus, not being content with Babylon,
Ecbatana, and all the empire of the Medes, attacked Phraates, the king of
the Parthians, and was defeated. Although he appears to have had 100,000
troops in his army, he dragged along with him an additional 200,000 camp-
followers and servants among whom were prostitutes and actors. Because
of this, he was easily defeated along with all his army by the might of the
Parthians and lost his life.'®’

9. In the consulate of Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus and Marcus Acilius,'°®
Publius Scipio Africanus, who had told a public meeting that he was in
danger of his life because he had discovered that he would be accused in
court by wicked, ungrateful men, while working for his country, was discov¬
ered dead in his bedroom the following morning. It is not thoughtlessly
that I would number this among the greatest of the Romans’ misfortunes,
especially since Scipio’s reputation for dynamism and personal modesty
was so strong in the City that it was easily believed that while he lived there
could not be a civil war nor one with Rome’s allies.''’’ 10 . Men say that he

105 Presumably because of the state this left his sister in, or perhaps because of his conse¬
quent aggravated murder of his son whose head, hands, and feet Ptolemy sent to his former
wife; see Livy, Per. 59.

106 Ptolemy VIII Euergetes, but more popularly Physcon, ‘pot-belly’, had a tenible reputa¬
tion in antiquity; see Green (1990) 538. He fled from Egypt in 132/1 BC. Incestuous maniage
was not an uncommon Pharoanic practice and was adopted by the Ptolemies. Ptolemy VIII’s
sister, Cleopatra II, whom he married on coming to the throne in 145 BC had been his prede¬
cessor’s, Ptolemy VI, wife. He divorced her to marry his niece, who became Cleopatra III, in
142 BC. His brother’s son whom he murdered was Ptolemy VII Neophilopator. Orosius omits
to mention that Ptolemy returned to Egypt in 130 BC, basing his rule at Memphis and recap¬
turing Alexandria in 126/5 BC. Ptolemy died on 26 June 116 BC.

107 Antiochus VII Euergetes Sidetes (138-129 BC). His intended victim was Phraates II
(c.139-129 BC). Orosius, eager to moralise here, suppresses the fact that initially Antiochus
had great success in his campaign. Antiochus’s campaign is recorded by Justin, 38.10.8-10.

108 Consuls in 625 At/C/129 BC. Orosius has garbled Manlius Aquillius’s name to produce
Marcus Acilius.

109 Augustine also expresses shock at Rome’s ingratitude towards Scipio, but not at such
great length {City of God, 3.21). For a modern assessment of Scipio, see Scullard (1970) 210-43.

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was treacherously killed by his wife, Sempronia, who was the sister of the
Gracchi, so that this criminal, as I believe, family, bom for the destmction of
their own country, should, amid the godless sedition of its menfolk, become
all the more detestable through the criminal deeds of its women."®

11 . In the consulate of Marcus Aemilius and Lucius Orestes,"' Etna
was strack by a great tremor and poured forth balls of fire. On another day,
the island of Lipara and the sea around it seethed with so much heat that
rocks were burnt up and dissolved, ships’ planks were scorched as their wax
caulking melted, and roasted, dead fish floated on the surface. Even men,
apart from those able to flee far from the scene, were suffocated, their vitals
seared by the hot air they breathed in and out."^

1 . In the consulate of Marcus Plautius Hypsaeus and Marcus Eulvius
Elaccus,"® a horrible and unaccustomed disaster befell Africa when she
had hardly recovered from the ravages of war. 2. Great swarms of locusts
gathered all over Africa, not only destroying any hope of a crop, but also
eating every sort of grass, including part of their roots, and the leaves of
tress along with their younger branches. They even gnawed through bitter
bark and dry wood. Then, suddenly, they were swept up into bunches by
the wind, and, after being carried through the air for a long time, were
drowned in the African Sea. 3. After the currents had driven great heaps
of them onto the shore far and wide along the coast by the action of the
waves, these decaying, putrid masses exuded a stench so foul that it could
not be imagined. Prom it so great a plague descended on all of animal-kind
alike that everywhere the rotting corpses of birds, domesticated, and wild
animals which had been killed by the disease as it was borne through the air,
increased the disease’s potency. 4. My whole body trembles as I record how
many men perished. Indeed, in Numidia, where at that time Micipsa was
king,"'* 800,000 men are said to have perished, along with some 200,000

110 Livy, Per. 59, merely records the suspicion of murder and says no trial was held.
Orosius has embroidered Livy’s original account to fit his own hostile view of Sempronia.

111 Consuls in 628 At/C/126 BC.

112 These portents are taken from Julius Obsequens, 29. Orosius has suppressed Obsequens’
comment that the eruption prophesised coming civil war. He has also diminished the impact of
the dead fish and increased that of the volcano’s fumes. Augustine, City of God, 3.31, mentions
these events in passing.

113 Consuls in 629 At/C/125 BC.

114 Micipsa reigned from 148-118 BC.

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who lived on the coast, especially in the areas around Carthage and Utica.
In the city of Utica itself, 30,000 soldiers who had been stationed there to
protect all Africa were killed and blotted out. 5. This disaster befell them
with such sudden violence that it is said that at Utica more than 1,500 corpses
of the young were taken out for burial through a single gate in a single day.

6. Notwithstanding this, I want to state that through the grace and peace
of Omnipotent God - about Whose mercy and in Whose faith I am writing
these things - although in our times too swarms of locusts have appeared
from time to time in divers places, usually causing harm, though normally at
a tolerable level, there has never occurred in Christian times such a violent
attack of inescapable ills as this ruin brought by the locusts, which was
unbearable while they were alive and caused even more harm when they
were dead. For during the long period when the locusts were alive, every¬
thing was on the point of death, but after the locusts had died, and every¬
thing began to die all the more, they were forced to wish that the locusts
had not died."^

1 . 627 years from the Foundation of the City, in the consulate of Lucius
Caecilius Metellus and Quintus Titius Flaminius,"® Carthage was ordered to
be rebuilt in Africa twenty-two years after her destruction. She was rebuilt
and populated by Roman families sent there to work her land.*'^ Before this
happened, a great prodigy occurred. 2 . For the surveyors sent out to mark
out the Carthaginians’ land found that the poles they had fixed in the ground
to mark out its boundaries had been torn up and bitten through by wolves
in the night. After this, there was some hesitation as to whether refounding
Carthage would help Rome be at peace.

3. In the same year, Gains Gracchus, the brother of the Gracchus who
had already been killed while raising sedition, was made tribune of the plebs
during a riot and proved a disaster for the state."® 4 . For by his bribes and

115 The account of the locusts is drawn from Augustine, City of God, 3.31. It is also found
in Julius Obsequens, 30, and Livy, Per. 60.

116 Orosius’s date is incorrect; these two were consuls in 631 Af/C/123 BC. The names
of the consuls have also been garbled and should read Quintus Caecilius Metellus and Titus
Quinctius Flaminius.

117 See Eutropius, 4.21, and Livy, Per. 60.

118 Pernicies used here of Gracchus is the same word used of the plague of locusts in the
preceding chapter, 5.11.6. Orosius’s hostile treatment of Gaius Gracchus shows heavy influ¬
ence from Livy, see Per. 60.

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excessive promises he often roused the people to violent sedition, princi¬
pally in support of the agrarian law over which his brother had been killed.
Einally he left the tribunate and was succeeded by Minucius."*

5. When as tribune, Minucius tore up most of the statutes of his prede¬
cessor, Gracchus, and repealed his laws, Gracchus, accompanied by Fulvius
Flaccus'^® and surrounded by a great crowd, went up to the Capitol where
a public meeting was being held. There an enormous riot broke out and
Gracchus’s supporters killed a herald giving, as it were, the signal for battle.
6 . Flaccus, flanked by his two armed sons and accompanied by Gracchus
who, although wearing a toga, was hiding a short sword in his left sleeve,
vainly sent out a herald to call on the slaves to flght for their freedom and
occupied the temple of Diana as his stronghold. 7. He was attacked by
the former consul Decimus Brutus who launched an attack with a great
column of men from Publician Hill.'^' Flaccus held his ground for a long
time, fighting tenaciously. Gracchus retreated to the temple of Minerva and
wanted to fall on his sword, but was stopped by Laetorius. For a long time
the battle hung in the balance, but in the end the close-packed crowd was
put to flight by a group of archers sent by Opimius.'^^ 8. The two Flacci,
father and son, leapt down from the temple of Luna into a private house
and barricaded its doors. But the wattle walls were torn apart and they were
then run through. While his supporters continued to flght and die for him,
Gracchus made his way with some difficulty to the Sublician bridge, where,
not wishing to be taken alive, he had one of his slaves behead him.'^^

9. Gracchus’s severed head was brought to the consul, while his body
was taken to his mother, Cornelia, in the town of Misenum. As I have
already said, this Cornelia, the daughter of the elder Scipio Africanus,
had withdrawn to Misenum after the death of her elder son.'^'* Gracchus’s
possessions were seized by the state, the young Flaccus was done to death in

119 Gracchus was elected as tribune for 123 and 122 BC, a striking breach of normal
practice.

120 The former consul of 125 BC. By letting slip this detail, Orosius unwittingly destroys
the image he wished to create of Gracchus as a rabble-rouser and reveals that he had support
from some senior members of the Roman establishment.

121 Consul in 138 BC.

122 One of the consuls of the day, 121 BC.

123 The location is significant, as on the Ides of May the pontifices threw 30 straw figures
called argei into the Tiber from this bridge for the well-being of Rome. Orosius has suppressed
any resonance of this that may have been in his sources. See Ovid, Fasti, 5.621, and Varro, On
the Latin Language {De Lingua Latina), 7.44.

124 Orosius has made no mention of this previously.

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prison, while 250 members of Gracchus’s cabal are said to have been killed
on the Aventine Hill. 10 . The consul Opimius proved to be as cruel in the
subsequent inquiry as he had been brave in the fighting, for he punished by
execution over 3,000 men, the majority of whom were innocent and had not
even been allowed to state their case.'^^

1 . During the same period, Metellus passed through and conquered the
Balearic islands, and, by slaughtering the majority of the inhabitants, put an
end to their infestation by pirates which had grown up at this time.*^®

2 . The proconsul Gnaeus Domitius defeated the Allobrogian Gauls'^’
near the town of Vindalium'^® in a costly battle: the enemies’ horses and the
enemy themselves scattered in terror on seeing elephants for the first time.
20,000 Allobroges are said to have been killed in this battle and 3,000 were
captured.'^®

3 . At this same time, there was a greater than usual eruption of Etna.
Torrents of fire poured out and flowed far and wide round about, causing such
damage to the city of Gatina and its territory that house roofs, burnt through
and weighed down with hot ash, collapsed. To alleviate this catastrophe, the
Senate decreed that Gatina have a ten years’ exemption from taxes.

1 . 628 years after the foundation of the City, the consul Eabius attacked
Bituitus,'^' the king of the Arverni, a Gallic tribe. Bituitus had prepared
for war, gathering together an enormous force of men, so that when Eabius
attacked him with his small army, Bituitus boasted that he would hardly

125 Orosius’s hostile account of Gaius Gracchus probably derives from Livy, 60-61. It
is striking in that Fulvius Flaccus is seemingly given a greater role than in his sources. For
Nasica’s action after Gracchus’s death, see Augustine, City of God, 3.24.

126 Metellus conquered the Balearics in 123-122 BC, celebrating a triumph in 121 BC;
see Livy, Per. 60.

127 See Livy, Per 61. The Allobroges lived in the lands between the Rhone and Isere.

128 Port de la Traille at the confluence of the Rhone and Sorgue.

129 Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, consul in 122, held proconsular command in Gaul in 121
BC.

130 Drawn from Augustine, City of God, 3.31, where the tax remission is for only one
year. The eruption is also mentioned by Julius Obsequens, 32. Catina is the modern Catania.

131 Normally spelt Betultus.

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be able to feed the dogs which he had in his column on so few Romans. 2.
When he realised that one bridge would not be sufficient to take his troops
over the Rhone, he built another made of small boats lying side by side and
lashed together with chains, laying and nailing down planks above them. 3.
Battle was joined and the fight was long and bitter; finally the Gauls were
defeated and put to flight. Because each of them was thinking of his own
safety, their columns massed together with no thought at all, so that their
uncontrolled crossing broke the chains that held the bridge together and
they soon fell down among the boats. There are said to have been 180,000
troops in Bituitus’s army, of whom 150,000 were killed or drowned.'^^

5. The consul Quintus Marcius attacked the race of Gauls who live at the
foot of the Alps. After seeing that they had been surrounded by the Romans
and were too weak to fight them, they killed their women and children
and flung themselves into the flames.6. Those who had been captured
by the Romans before they had a chance of taking their lives later killed
themselves by stabbing or hanging themselves, or refusing to eat. Not one
of them, not even a small child, was found who would endure slavery from
a love of life.'^'*

1. 635 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Publius
Scipio Nasica and Lucius Calpurnius Bestia,'^^ the Senate, with the agree¬
ment of the Roman people, declared war on Jugurtha, the king of the
Numidians.

2. I shall discuss Jugurtha only briefly for the sake of preserving the
order of my work and to note his presence, since both his fickle, insupport¬
able character and his deeds, which were carried out with a treachery that
matched his vigour, are very well known to us all through the excellent,
enlightening works of previous writers.*^**

3. Now Jugurtha, the adopted son of King Micipsa of Numidia, was

132 Orosius’s dating is five years out; Q. Fabius Maximus was consul in 633 At/C/121
BC. See Livy, Per. 61, and Floms, 1.37, neither of whom mentions the incident of the bridge.

133 Of their families’ funeral pyres.

134 Q. Marcius Rex, consul in 118 BC. Orosius’s account is drawn from Livy, Per. 61. The
tribe were the Styni who lived in Liguria.

135 Orosius’s date is eight years out. Scipio and Calpurnius were the consuls of 643
At/C/111 BC.

136 A reference to Livy and, above all, Sallust.

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made one of his heirs along with Micipsa’s natural sons. First, he dealt with
his co-heirs, that is he killed Hiempsal, and after defeating Adherbal in
battle, drove him from Africa. 4 . Then, he bribed Calpurnius, the consul who
had been sent to wage war on him and obtained a peace treaty on scandalous
terms. 5. Moreover, when he came to Rome, he immersed himself in sedition
and conspiracies, bribing or attempting to bribe everyone. As he left the city,
he well characterised it with his infamous aphorism: ‘O City for sale and
doomed to die - if only you can find a buyer.’

6. In the following year, he defeated Aulus Postumius, the brother of
the consul Postumius'^® who had put him in command of an army of 40,000
troops, near the city of Calama,'^* as he lusted for the royal treasure which
lay hidden there. On his defeat, Jugurtha imposed a shameful treaty on him,
and went on to annex almost all of Africa as it defected from Rome to his
kingdom. 7. Afterwards, however, Jugurtha was contained by the consul
Metellus, who was a model of integrity and military discipline.''^” He was
defeated twice and saw his homeland Numidia laid waste before his own
eyes, being powerless to defend it. Forced to surrender because of this, he
handed over 300 hostages, promised to supply grain and other provisions,
and returned over 3,000 deserters. 8. Then when he showed himself untrust¬
worthy in peace as he did not stop his criminal raids, he was crushed by the
cunning of the consul Gaius Marius, which was hardly less than that with
which he himself was endowed, and his Roman forces.''" Marius showed
this above all when he cleverly surrounded and captured the town of Capsa,
which, they say, was founded by the Phoenician Hercules,'''^ and was, at that
time, packed full of the king’s treasure.'''”

9 . After this, Jugurtha, despairing of his circumstances and resources,
made an alliance with Bocchus, king of the Moors. Greatly strengthened by
Bocchus’s cavalry, he harried Marius’s army with continual raiding. 10 . He

137 Taken from Sallust, The War against Jugurtha, 35.20; see also Livy, Per. 64.

138 Sp. Postumius Albinus, consul in 664 Af/C/110 BC. Orosius has continued his chrono¬
logical error from the beginning of the chapter.

139 The modem Guelma in Algeria. Sallust, The War against Jugurtha, 37.3, calls the town
Suthul.

140 Q. Caecilius Metellus, consul in 109 BC and proconsul in 108-107 BC. He was
awarded the cognomen ‘Numidicus’ for his actions.

141 Marius had previously fought Jugurtha under Metellus. After an acrimonious break
with Metellus, not mentioned by Orosius, he was elected consul for 107 BC and returned to
Africa as commander-in-chief of Rome’s forces.

142 i.e. the Punic god, Melqart. Capsa is the modern Gafsa in Tunisia.

143 See Florus, 1.36.14.

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finally faced the Romans in battle with a force of 60,000 cavalry, as they
prepared to storm the ancient city of Cirta which was the seat of Masinissa’s
throne.*'"'

11 . Never had Roman troops fought in a more confused or terrible
battle. So much dust was raised by the circling, whinnying horses as they
whirled round and attacked that it covered the sky, turning day into night.
Such a great cloud of javelins rained down that no part of the body was
safe from their blows, for because of the darkness, they could not see ahead
and, as they were all crushed together, they were unable to move to avoid
them. 12 . It would have been no effort at all for the Numidian and Moorish
cavalry to tear apart their foe, who lay ideally placed, with aimed volleys of
javelins, but they preferred to throw their spears without being sure of their
target, for they were sure that wounds would surely follow. In this way, the
Roman infantry were forced together into one dense mass. Night gave them
a respite from their great peril. 13 . On the following day, the battle took the
same form and brought the same dangers. Although they drew their swords,
the troops could not charge into the enemy as they were driven off at long
range by their javelins, nor could they flee, as the horsemen, who were
quicker than them, had surrounded them on all sides.

14 . The third day came and there was no help from anywhere, while
everywhere death’s terrible visage stared them in the face. Finally, by his
bold desperation the consul Marius opened up a path of hope. Forming up
all his men into a column, he broke out from his fortifications, entrusting
himself to the plains and battle. 15 . The enemy poured round them again not
only cutting the column’s wings to pieces, but also, throwing their javelins
from afar, bringing slaughter into its centre too. The heat of the sun, the
unbearable thirst, and the nearness of death reduced the disordered Romans
to the depths of despair. Then, suddenly, the Romans’ famous support
against Africans, storms and rain, was sent down from heaven, bringing
them an unhoped-for salvation.'''^ 16 . For this sudden rain gave refresh¬
ment and drink to the thirsty, sweating Romans, but it made the Numidians’
javelin shafts, which they threw by hand without using any thongs, slippery
and hence useless. 17 . Moreover, their light and effective shields made

144 The modem Constantine in Algeria. The battle was fought in 106 BC.

145 cf. 4.17.5-11 and 7.15.9. Orosius deliberately uses a passive verb here to imply that the
rain was a result of divine aid.

146 The standard way of throwing the javelin in antiquity was to use a thong wrapped
round its shaft. This increased the leverage of the thrower and, by spinning the weapon, made
it more accurate.

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of stretched, hardened elephant hide became unusable and useless, as this
material soaks up the rain like a sponge and so they suddenly became too
heavy to manage, and, because they were unable to be carried around, no
use for defence. And so, as their Moors had, against their expectations, been
thrown into chaos and left helpless, Bocchus and Jugurtha fled.

18. After this, these same kings threw 90,000 armed men into one last
battle. It is said that the Romans cut them down to the point of annihilation.
The outcome made Bocchus despair of the war and seek peace. To buy this,
he sent Jugurtha, whom he had captured by treachery, loaded in chains to
Marius through the agency of his lieutenant, Sulla.19. Jugurtha, along
with his two sons, was driven before Marius’s chariot in his triumph.'"** He
was strangled in prison soon afterwards.

20. At this time, an obscene, tragic prodigy occurred. A Roman knight,
Lucius Helvius, was returning with his wife and daughter to Apulia from
Rome. He was caught in a storm and when he saw that his daughter was
terrified, he abandoned his coaches and took to the horses so that they might
reach the neighbouring houses more quickly, sitting his maiden daughter on
a horse in the middle of his party. 21. The girl was at once struck dead by
a bolt of lightning. All her clothes were stripped from her, though none of
them were torn, her girdle and the straps of her sandals were broken loose,
and her necklace and rings scattered far and wide. Her body too remained
untouched, though in an obscene posture, lying naked and with the tongue
sticking out a short way. The horse on which she had been riding lay dead
a good way off with its saddle, reins, and harness undone and scattered
about.'"*®

22. A little after this, another Roman knight, Lucius Veturius, polluted
the Vestal Virgin Aemilia by secretly having sex with her. This same
Aemilia offered and gave to the companions of her own seducer two other
Vestal Virgins whom she had enticed into taking part in this pollution. Their

147 See Livy, Per. 66.

148 Marius celebrated his triumph in 104 BC.

149 Orosius gives no explicit reason for recording this portent. It is found in Julius
Obsequens, 37, where it is dated to 114 BC and probably derives from Livy, 63. Obsequens
gives the name of the knight as Publius (H)Elvius. The same account is found in Plutarch,
Roman Questions, 83. Here the girl’s name is given as Helvia. In both cases, the explanation
given is that the portent revealed adultery between Vestal Virgins and knights and that subse¬
quently three Vestals and several knights were executed precisely for this offence. Orosius
records these executions in the following section, but suppresses the link between the two
events in order not to concede the efficacy of omens concerning pagan religion.

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actions were betrayed by a slave and they were all executed.

23. At the same time as the Jugurthine War was taking place, the
consul Lucius Cassius'^' pursued the Tigurini in Gaul as far as the Ocean,
hut was then surrounded and killed by them in an ambush.'^ 24. Lucius
Piso, Cassius’s lieutenant, and a former consul, was also killed.Cassius’s
other lieutenant. Gains Publius, made a disgraceful treaty with the Tigurini,
handing over hostages and half of all the army’s baggage train.He did
this to stop the remnants of the army, which had fled to their camp, being
wiped out. On his return to Rome, Puhlius was indicted hy a tribune of the
plehs, Caelius, on the grounds that he had given hostages to the Tigurini,
and fled into exile.

25. The proconsul Caepio captured a Gallic city named Tolosa*^® and
took 100,000 pounds of gold and 110,000 pounds of silver from the temple
of Apollo there. He sent this under guard to Marseilles, a town friendly to
Rome, but some sources relate that he had those whom he had sent to guard
and escort it secretly killed, and so, it is said, that by perpetrating this crime
he stole the entire treasure. Because of these allegations, a major inquiry
was later held at Rome.'”

1 . 642 years after the foundation of the City, the consul Gaius Manlius
and the proconsul Quintus Caepio were despatched against the Cimbri,
Teutonae, Tigurini, and Ambronae: Gallic and German tribes who were at
that time conspiring to bring Rome’s rule to an end.'®^ They divided their

150 According to Plutarch, Roman Questions, 83, the slave was owned by one of the Vestals’
lovers, Vetutius Bamis. Plutarch also names the three Vestals: Aemilia, Licinia, and Marcia.

151 Consul in 107 BC.

152 The Tigurini were a branch of the Helvetii tribe. Orosius exaggerates slightly as Caepio
defeated this tribe in the land of the Nitiobroges, who were centred on Agen in Aquitaine, some
way inland from the coast. See Livy, Per. 65.

153 Consul in 112 BC.

154 See Livy, Per. 65.

155 Orosius has gai'bled the name of G. Popillius Laenas into Gaius Publius. The tribune
involved was G. Coelius Caldus.

156 The modem Toulouse.

157 Caepio was stripped of his command in 105 BC after his defeat at Orange (see 5.16.2-3
below) and was indicted by the tribune G. Norbanus in 103 BC, leading to his conviction and
exile.

158 Orosius has drawn the bulk of this chapter from Livy, 67-68.

159 Orosius’s date is seven years awry; the campaign took place in 649 AUC/105 BC. He

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command, making the river Rhone the division between them. 2. Then,
while they were quarrelling against one another with great envy and bitter¬
ness, they were defeated, bringing both great disgrace and danger to Rome.
In this battle Marcus Aemilius, a former consul,'*® was captured and killed,
and two of the consul’s sons were also slain. 3. Antias writes that 80,000
Romans and their allies were slaughtered in this storm of battle, along with
40,000 camp-followers and bearers.'*' 4 . And so out of this entire army,
they say that merely ten men survived and that they were spared in order to
tell the grim news to their fellow-countrymen and so worsen their grief.'*^
5. After capturing the two Roman camps and a vast amount of booty, the
enemy destroyed everything that they had laid their hands on in some new,
unexpected form of curse. 6. Clothing was ripped up and discarded, gold
and silver thrown into the river, the men’s armour was torn apart, the horses’
harness scattered and the horses themselves drowned in the river, while the
men had nooses tied round their necks and were hanged from trees. In this
way the victor knew no booty nor the vanquished any mercy.'*^ 7. At Rome
there was not only great grief, but also great fear that the Cimbri would
straightaway cross over the Alps and devastate Italy.

8. At this time, Quintus Fabius Maximus'*'' banished his adolescent son
to his country estate and killed him there, using two slaves to carry out the
act whom he immediately freed as a reward for their crime. He was indicted
by Gnaeus Pompey'** and found guilty.

9 . Marius, now consul for the fourth time,'** pitched his camp by the
confluence of the rivers Isere and Rhone. The Teutones, Cimbri, Tigurini,
and Ambrones, after attacking the camp continually for three days to see if
they could drive the Romans from the ramparts and flush them out onto the
plains then decided to march on Italy in three columns.

has also garbled the names of the two men involved who were Gn. Mallius Maximus and Q.
Servilius Caepio. Their campaign took place in 649 At/C/105 BC.

160 Suffect, i.e. replacement, consul in 108 BC.

161 This information and the reference to Antias is taken from Livy; see Per. 67.

162 The Battle of Arausio (the modem Orange) fought on 6 October 105 BC. Orosius
suppresses the commonly held view that the defeat was the result of Caepio’s sacrilegious
stripping of precious metals from the temple of Apollo in Toulouse; see 5.15.25 above.

163 For a discussion of this form of sacrifice, see Ellis Davidson (1964) 54-61.

164 See Valerius Maximus, 6.1.5. This is probably Q. Fabius Maximus Ebumus, the censor
of 108 BC.

165 Gn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompey the Great and quaestor in 104 BC.

166 652 At/C/102 BC.

167 A strong verbal reminiscence of Virgil, Aeneid, 9.68.

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10 . After the enemy had left, Marius moved camp and occupied a hill
that dominated the plain and the river where the enemy had spread out.
When his army ran out of drinking water and everyone began to complain
to him, he replied that there was, in fact, water in front of them, but that it
would have to be won by the sword. The camp-followers were the first to
charge screaming into battle, followed by the army. Soon the ranks were
drawn up, a battle was fought in good order, and the Romans were victo¬
rious. 11 . Three days later, both sides again drew up their battle-lines on
the plain and they fought to mid-day without either side gaining any great
advantage. However, after the sun grew hot, the Gauls’ bodies began to
give way like melting snow and the action, which dragged on until night¬
fall, became more of a massacre than a battle. 12 . 200,000 armed men are
said to have been killed in this battle, 80,000 captured, and scarcely 3,000
to have escaped.*®® The enemy’s leader, Teutobodus, was also slain. 13 .
Their womenfolk, showing a hrmness of spirit greater than it would have
been had their men-folk been victorious, counselled the consul that if they
were allowed serve the Vestal Virgins and the gods with their chastity invio¬
late, they would not take their own lives.*®* When they were refused, they
battered their children to death on the rocks and took their own lives by the
sword or by the noose.

This is what was done concerning the Tigurini and Ambrones.

14 . However, the Teutones and Cimbri crossed the snows of the Alps
with their forces intact and surged across the lowlands of Italy. Here, when
this hardy race had long grown soft through the warmer climate, food,
drink, and baths,*™ Marius, now consul for the fifth time, and Catulus were
despatched against them.*** When the day and place for battle had been
decided, they followed Hannibal’s cunning, forming up in the mist, but
fighting in the sun.*** 15 . The first surprise for the Gauls was to come up
against a fully formed Roman battle-line before they realised it had arrived.

168 The Battle of Aquae Sextae (the modem Aix-en-Provence). Eutropius, 5.1.4, gives the
same casualty figures, though does not mention the numbers of those who escaped. Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 1915, also has these figures. Livy, Per. 68, gives the number of prisoners as
90,000.

169 See Valerius Maximus, 6.1.

170 Florus, 1.38.13, probably drawing on Livy, mentions the climate, food, and drink, but
makes no mention of baths. These could be a moralising addition by Orosius, the early Chris¬
tians being deeply suspicious of the baths, but bath-houses were already a topos for luxuria\
see Seneca, Letters, 86, and Tacitus, Agricola, 21.

171 652Af/C/102BC.

172 A reference to the Battle of Lake Trasimene, see 4.15.4-6.

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Then, when the mauled Gallic cavalry were pushed back into their own
people, the whole mass of Gauls who were still coming onto the field of
battle and not yet formed up were thrown into confusion. After that, the sun
rose and shone in their eyes and the wind blew in their faces, so that they
were blinded by dust and exhausted by the heat. 16 . In this way this huge,
terrifying host was cut down almost to a man, while the Romans lost hardly
anyone. They say that 140,000 of them fell in this battle and that a further
60,000 were taken prisoner.'’^

17 . Their women forced a battle which was almost more severe than
that fought by the men. They made a sort of fort by drawing their wagons
into a circle and drove off the Romans for a long time, fighting themselves
from the top of its ramparts. But after the Romans had terrified them by a
new way of dealing out death - stripping the skin and hair from their heads
and leaving them disgraced by this dishonourable sort of wound - they
turned the swords which they had taken up against the enemy on themselves
and their children. 18 . Some cut each others’ throats, others throttled one
another, others tied ropes round their horses’ legs and, after tying those
same ropes which they had tied to the horses’ legs around their own necks,
urged the horses on and so were dragged to their deaths. Yet others pushed
up the yoke-poles of their wagons and hanged themselves from them. 19 .
They found one woman who had placed a noose round the necks of her two
sons and attached it to her feet, so that when she flung herself down to be
hanged, she dragged her children to their doom with her. 20 . Among these
manifold, wretched ways of dying, it is said that two minor chiefs drew their
swords and ran each other through. Kings Lugius and Boiorix fell in battle,
while Claodicus and Caesorix were taken prisoner.

21 . So in these two battles 340,000 Gauls were killed and 140,000
captured, quite apart from the innumerable multitude of women who with
a woman’s frenzy, but a man’s strength, slaughtered themselves and their
little children.

22 . However, Marius’s great triumph and Rome’s victory were overshad¬
owed when an unbelievable crime, previously unknown to the Romans, was
suddenly perpetrated at Rome and plunged all the city into horror-stricken
grief. 23 . Publicius Malleolus killed his own mother with his slaves’ aid. He
was convicted of parricide and thrown into the sea sewn up in a sack. 24 .

173 The Battle of the Raudian Plain. The same casualty figures are found in Livy, Per. 68.
Florus, 1.38.14, has much lower casualties, giving the numbers of the dead as 65,000 Gauls
and fewer than 300 Romans. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 1916, notes the battle but gives no
casualty figures.

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The Romans had managed both a crime and a penalty for which even the
Athenian Solon had not dared legislate because he did not believe such a
thing was possible. But the Romans, who knew they were descended from
Romulus, knew that even this could happen and sanctioned a unique penalty
for it.*’"^

17175

1 645 years after the foundation of the City, in the year after the war with
the Cimbri and Teutones and Marius’s fifth consulate, it was reasonably
assumed that Rome’s power was safe, but in the sixth consulate of that
same Gaius Marius,'^® Rome endured such a fall that she nearly put an end
to herself through internal dissent.

2. To me it seems a long and tedious task to run through and explain
the twists of this strife and the labyrinthine reasons that produced this
sedition. 3. Let it suffice that I have briefly pointed out that Lucius Apuleius
Saturninus was the first to incite disturbances. He was a bitter enemy of
Quintus Metellus Numidicus, who was indisputably one of Rome’s foremost
men.'’’ After Numidicus was made censor, Saturninus dragged him from his
house, and when he had fled to the Capitol, besieged him there with a mob
of armed men. He was forced from there by the anger of the Roman knights,
after a great many had been killed at the foot of the hill.'’® After this, through

174 Livy, Per. 68, asserts Malleolus was the first to be punished in this way, though Valerius
Maximus, 1.1.13, states that the punishment was used as a form of expiation for religious
offences by Tarquin the Proud. For Orosius the purpose of mentioning this incident is to
diminish the lustre of Rome’s victories over the Gauls and to blacken the Romans’ character.

175 Orosius’s main source for this chapter is Livy, 69-70.

176 Orosius’s date is nine years out; Marius held his sixth consulate in 654 At/C/100 BC.

177 Saturninus was one of the tribunes of the plebs in 100 BC. His hatred of Metellus was
due to the fact that Metellus, when censor in 102 BC, had tried to expel him and his supporter,
Glaucia, from the Senate.

178 This is an extremely confused passage. The incident reported here is not mentioned
in any other source. Arnaud-Lindet (1991) 255-56 n. 2, suggests that Orosius has confused
Metellus Numidicus with Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus whom a tribune, G. Atilius
Labeo, ordered to be thrown from the Tarpeian rock in 131 BC. The account of this incident
is found in Livy, Per. 59, but we are also told that the rest of the college of tribunes, not the
equites, prevented the order being carried out. The two incidents are therefore quite distinct,
although the verb deicere is found in both. It is more likely that Orosius is referring to the riots
that broke out in 102 BC when Metellus refused to allow Lucius Equitius, the self-styled son of
Tiberius Gracchus, who was supported by Saturninus, onto the census roll; see Cicero, Speech
in defence of Sestius {Pro Sestio), 101. Orosius’s cryptic reference to the anger of the equites
may well be a product of him misreading Equitius in his source.

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the treachery of the consul of the day, Gaius Marius, Saturninus and Glaucia
killed Aulus Nunius, their rival for office.'’^

4. The following year, Marius who was consul for the sixth time,
Glaucia, now a praetor, and Saturninus, a tribune of the plebs, plotted to
use any force necessary to drive Metellus Numidicus into exile. A trial was
held, and Metellus, though innocent, was criminally condemned by a jury
suborned by this faction and departed into exile to the grief of the entire
city.'*“ 5. This same Saturninus feared that Memmius, an active and honour¬
able man, would be made consul and had his henchman, Publius Mettius,
kill him with a rough club as he fled from a sudden riot.'*'

6. The Senate and people were now in an uproar about the great
troubles afflicting the republic, so the consul Marius, changing his views
to fit the circumstances, allied himself with the views of the better sort and
calmed the plebs with a soothing speech. Saturninus, after daring to do
these disgraceful acts, held a rally at his house at which he was acclaimed
as king by some, and as commander-in-chief by others. 7. Marius formed
the people into maniples,'*^ stationed the other consul'** on the hill with a
garrison, while he fortified the gates. The battle was fought in the forum.
Saturninus was driven from the forum by Marius’s supporters and fled
to the Capitol. Marius then cut the pipes that took water there. 8. A grim
enough battle followed at the entrance to the Capitol and many men were
cut down around Saufeius and Saturninus, while Saturninus kept shouting
out aloud to one and all, proclaiming that Marius had been behind all his
schemes. 9. Then Marius forced Saturninus, Saufeius, and Labienus to flee
into the senate-house; the doors were forced open, and they were killed by
Roman knights.'*'' Gaius Glaucia was dragged from Claudius’s house and
hacked to pieces.'** 10. A tribune of plebs, Furius,'*" passed a law confis-

179 Nunius was murdered just before the elections for the tribunate at the end of 101 BC.

180 This is a highly garbled version of events. Metellus was, in fact, outwitted by Marius
and Saturninus and went into exile after refusing to swear an oath to respect the provisions of
Satuminus’s agrarian legislation in 100 BC.

181 The name of Memmius’s assassin only appears in Orosius, though it may well have
featured in Livy, 69.

182 A subdivision of the legion, containing around 60 men. It was effectively abolished by
Marius and certainly obsolete in Orosius’s day. Livy, Per. 69, notes that Saturninus was put
down in a ‘war of sorts’. Perhaps the full version of the text made a reference to maniples.

183 L. Valerius Flaccus.

184 These events took place on 10 December 100 BC.

185 Nothing is known of this Claudius.

186 P. Furius, tribune in 99 BC, and a supporter of Marius.

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eating the property of all Saturninus’s supporters. Saturninus’s brother,
Gnaeus Dolabella, was killed with along with Lucius Giganius, as he fled
through the vegetable market. And so, on the deaths of the leaders of this
great sedition, the people became quiet. 11. At this point, to the delight of
the whole city, Cato'®^ and Pompeius'*® proposed that Metellus Numidicus
return to Rome, but the factions of the consul, Marius, and of the tribune of
the plebs, Eurius, intervened to stop this happening.

12. Rutilius, too, being a man of such constant loyalty and rectitude,
did not, from the time his trial was set by his accusers up to the very time
of his appearance in court, grow his hair or beard long or, by wearing dirty
clothing and by behaving humbly, win over the jury, appease his enemies, or
placate his judges. On the contrary, after he was given permission to speak
by the praetor, he was no more submissive than his spirit had ever been.
13. Although he had been arrayed on a self-evidently trumped-up charge
and all the best men thought he should rightly be acquitted, he was found
guilty by a perjured jury. He emigrated to Smyrna and grew old pursuing
his literary studies.'**

1. 659 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Sextus
Julius Caesar and Lucius Marcius Philippus,'*" a war with the allies that
had started through internal disputes convulsed all Italy. 2. Livius Drusus, a
tribune of the plebs, had seduced all the Latins with the prospect of freedom
and, when he was unable fulfil his promise, roused them to arms.'*'

3. In addition to this, dire portents terrified the sorrowing city. At sunrise,
a ball of fire leapt up in the northern sky accompanied by a great crash in
the heavens. 4. At Arretium,'*^ when the bread was broken at a banquet,

187 The younger Cato, tribune of the plebs in 99 BC.

188 Q. Pompeius Rufus, one of Cato’s fellow tribunes.

189 Smyrna is the modern Izmir in Turkey. Although Orosius implies that Rutilius’s trial
came soon after Saturninus’s conspiracy, in fact it did not occur until 92 BC. Orosius has abbre¬
viated his account to the degree that it makes little sense. A fuller version is found in Livy, Per.
70, where we learn that Rutilius was unpopulai* with the knights because as deputy governor
of Asia, he stopped tax extortion in Asia. He was convicted of extortion, but his retirement to
Izmir in that province gave the lie to the verdict.

190 Orosius’s date is four years out; Caesar and Philippus were in fact consuls in 663
AC/C/91 BC.

191 Drusus had attempted to make the Latins full Roman citizens, but his proposals were
rejected.

192 The modem Arezzo.

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blood flowed out of the middle of it as if it came from a wounded body. 5.
Moreover, a hail of stones mixed with shards of tiles lashed the earth far
and wide for seven days without stopping. In the land of the Samnites, a
flame burst out from a great chasm in the ground and was seen reaching up
as far as the sky. 6. Many Romans as they journeyed saw a golden-coloured
globe come down from heaven to earth, grow in size, and then rise from the
ground back into the air. It was carried towards the rising sun, and, through
its size, blotted out the sun itself.

7. Drusus, troubled by this great number of evil portents, was killed in
his house by an unknown assailant.

8. Then, while they were still secretly plotting to defect, the Picentes,
Vestini, Marsi, Paeligni, Marrucini, Samnites, and Lucanians,^'^^ killed the
praetor Gains Servius, who had been sent as an ambassador to them, at
Asculum.'^"^ They straightaway closed the city gates, condemned all the
Roman citizens to death, and slaughtered them.

9. Immediately the most appalling portents possible then foreshadowed
the coming horrendous disaster. For every species of animal which had been
accustomed to endure the hand of man and live among men left their byres
and pastures and fled with piteous bleating, or whinnying, or lowing, to
the woods and hills. The dogs too, whose nature makes them unable to
live outside men’s company, wandered around like wolves, howling sorrow¬
fully.

10. The praetor Gnaeus Pompey was ordered by the Senate to wage war
on the Picenes and was defeated.After this, the Samnites made Papius
Mutilus their commander-in-chief, while the Marsi chose the notorious
pirate, Agammemnon. Julius Caesar fled after he was defeated and his
army slain in a battle against the Samnites.The consul Rutilius chose his

193 This list is taken verbatim from Livy, 72. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 1928, lists only
the Picentes, Marsi, and Paeligni.

194 The modern Ascoli Piceno. The war that follows is normally known as the Social War,
see 5.19.1.

195 Orosius has drawn the portents in sections 3-6 and 9 from Julius Obsequens, 54.
Augustine, City of God, 3.23, drawing on the same source, discusses the portent of the animals
found in section 9. Orosius has suppressed two overtly pagan portents involving a statue of
Apollo and the temple of Pietas, and changed the portent in section 9 where, according to
Obsequens and Augustine, domestic animals attacked their masters rather than fleeing from
them. Orosius is also more vague about the earlier portents he lists than Obsequens, who tells
us that flame coming from the ground was seen at Aenaria, and the golden globe at Spoletium.

196 Gn. Pompeius Strabo, the father of Pompey the Great.

197 L. Julius Caesar, consul in 90 BC and father of G. Julius Caesar.

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kinsman Marius as his lieutenant.'^® Marius continually warned him that the
war would profit from a delay and that his recruits ought to be trained for
a while in their camps. 12 . Rutilius thought that he was doing this through
treachery, spurned his advice, and flung himself along with his entire force
into a Marsian ambush. The consul himself died, while many nobles were
killed and 8,000 Roman soldiers were cut down. 13 . The river Tolenus'^^
carried the arms and bodies of slain past the eyes of his lieutenant, Marius,
bearing them away as a testimony to the disaster. Marius immediately
gathered his forces together and fell unexpectedly on the victors, killing
8,000 of the Marsi. 14 . But Caepio was lured into an ambush by the Vestini
and Marsi, and butchered along with his army.^“

On the other hand, Lucius Julius Caesar, on fleeing after his defeat
outside Aesernia,^"' gathered together troops from all sides, and fought the
Samnites and Lucanians, killing many thousands of the enemy. 15 . After he
was hailed as commander by his troops^® and had sent messengers to Rome
to report his victory, the Senate, as hope smiled upon them, took off their
sagas (this is the dress of mourning that they had put on at the beginning of
the Social War) and put on the ancient glory of the toga once more. Marius
then killed 6,000 of the Marsi and stripped another 7,000 of their arms. 16 .
Sulla was despatched with 24 cohorts to Aesernia, where Roman citizens
and troops were being closely besieged, and, after a great battle and much
slaughter of the enemy, rescued the city and Rome’s allies.

17 . Gnaeus Pompey put the Picenes to flight after a hard battle. After
this battle, the Senate started wearing the broad stripe and the rest of the
marks of their rank again.After Caesar’s victory, their hrst respite from
defeat, they had merely resumed wearing their togas. The praetor, Porcius
Cato, defeated the Etruscans, and his lieutenant, Plotius, the Umbri. Both
battles were hard-fought and cost much blood.

18 . In the consulate of Gnaeus Pompey and Lucius Porcius Cato,^®'*
Pompey undertook a lengthy siege of the town of Asculum; nor would he
have taken it, had the populace not sallied forth onto the plain and been

198 P. Rutilius Lupus, consul 90 BC.

199 The modern river Turano.

200 The praetor Q. Servilius Caepio who had taken over Rutilius’s command on the
consul’s death. See CIL 1^708.

201 The modem Isernia.

202 A traditional honour given to successful generals by their troops.

203 After his death, Pompey had taken over Caepio’s command. The victory and the resump¬
tion of wearing the latus clavus, the tradition mark of a senator, are found in Livy, Per. 74.

204 Consuls in 665 Af/C/89 BC.

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defeated with very heavy losses. 18,000 of the Marsi were killed in this
battle along with their commander, Fraucus. 3,000 were captured.^“ 19.
4,000 Italians who fled from this slaughter gathered into a single column,
and then, as fortune would have it, climbed up onto a mountain. There they
were afflicted and then killed by the snow, wretchedly freezing to death.

20. They stood there as if they had been startled by the enemy. Some were
sitting on stakes or rocks, others leaning on their weapons, all had open
eyes and showed their teeth, as if they were still alive. For those looking
on them from a distance, there was no sign that they were dead, except for
an endless stillness that would have been impossible for the life-force of a
man to endure long.

21. On the same day, the Picentes came to battle and were defeated.
Their leader, Vidacilius, summoned together his leading men and, after a
great banquet and some heavy drinking, called on all of them to follow his
example, drank a cup of poison, and died. His deed was praised by all, but
no one followed it.

22. 661 years after the foundation of the City,^“ a Roman army marched
out to besiege Pompeii. Because of his unbearable arrogance, Postumius
Albinus, a former consul who was at that time Lucius Sulla’s lieutenant,
earned the hatred of all his troops and was stoned to death.^®’ 23. The
consul Sulla declared that a citizen’s death could only be expiated by enemy
blood.Moved by a bad conscience over what they had done, the army
entered battle with every man feeling that unless he triumphed, he ought to
die. 18,000 Samnites fell in this battle. The army then pursued the enemy,
killing Juventius, the Italians’ leader, and a great number of his people.

24. The consul Porcius Cato was in charge of Marius’s men with whom
he performed some glorious deeds. After this, he boasted that Marius had
not done anything better himself. Because of this, he was killed, allegedly
by an unknown hand, in the heat of battle, while fighting against the Marsi
by Lake Fucinus, by Gains Marius’s son.^®

25. His lieutenant. Gains Gabinius,^'“ was killed while storming the

205 The battle is noted without detail in Livy, Per. 76.

206 Orosius continues to be four years out. These events in fact happened in 665 At/C/89
BC.

207 According to Livy, 75, he was suspected of treason.

208 An en'or of fact - Sulla did not become consul until 88 BC.

209 The Lago di Fucino/Lago di Celano in central Italy. It has been substantially drained
since antiquity. There is no hint of foul play concerning Cato’s death in Livy, Per 75.

210 Livy, Per 76, has Aulus Gabinius.

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enemy’s camp. The Marrucini and Vestini were harried and their lands
laid waste by Pompey’s lieutenant, Sulpicius.^^' The Italian commanders,
Popaedius and Obsidius, were defeated and killed by this same Sulpicius in
a grim battle by the river Theanum.^'^

26. Pompey entered Asculum and had the prefects, centurions, and
all their leading men beaten with staves and executed by the axe.^'^ He
auctioned their slaves and everything else he had plundered. He decreed
that those who remained could indeed leave as freemen, but stripped of their
clothes and possessions. The Senate had hoped that some help for public
expenditure would come from this booty, but Pompey gave none of it to
the treasury in its moment of need.^*'* 27. Eor at this time the treasury was
completely empty and there was not enough money to pay for com. This
lack of provisions forced the public spaces around the Capitol which had
been allocated to the priests, augurs, and decemvirs^'^ to be sold off, raising
a sufficient amount of money to help deal with this time of shortages.

28. So at a time when the wealth ripped from all the towns she had
overthrown and lands she had stripped bare was being piled up in the very
heart of the state, Rome herself was compelled by her shameful lack of
resources to auction off her most precious places. 29. Let Rome therefore
contemplate that part of her past, when, like an insatiable stomach, she
consumed everything, but was ever greedy. Yet she was more miserable than
all the cities she had reduced to misery. She left nothing, yet gained nothing,
being goaded by her pangs of hunger at home to prolong the troubles of war.

30. At this time. King Sothimus invaded Greece with a large number of
reinforcements from Thrace.^'® After he had ravaged all of Macedonia, he
was finally defeated by the praetor. Gains Sentius,^'’ and forced to retreat
to his own kingdom.

211 P. Sulpicius Rufus. He became a tribune of the plebs the following year. Cicero, Brutus
55, praises his oratorical skills.

212 The battle of Trinius, 89 BC. Orosius, or his source, has corrupted the name of the river
Trinius (the modem river Trigno) to Theanus.

213 A symbolic execution using both elements of thtfascis.

214 Livy, Per. 76, simply notes that Pompey took the town.

215 The decemviri sacris faciundis, one of the four main colleges of Roman priests. They
were charged with the care of the Sibylline Books and with consulting them when asked to do
so by the Senate.

216 Sothimus, normally Sithimus, was in fact a Thracian king. His campaigns appeared in
Livy, 76. These wars lasted from 93-88 BC.

217 Praetor in 94 BC, but at the time of this command a propraetor.

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1. 662 years after the foundation of the City,^'* when the Social War had
not yet ended, the first civil war broke out at Rome and in the same year
the Mithridatic War began^'^ - a war which, while it was less shameful, was
no less dangerous to the City. 2. We have various accounts of its duration,
depending on whether it should be measured from when it broke out or from
when it began to become serious. The two main lines of thought say that it
lasted either thirty or forty years. Although at this one time events loaded
with a perplexing variety of evils blazed up, I shall set them down individu¬
ally, though concisely, one after the other.

3. When Sulla was consul and, though still in Campania dealing with
the remnants of the Social War, was about to set off with an army to fight
Mithridates in Asia, Marius tried to gain a seventh consulate and command
of the war against Mithridates. 4. When he learnt of this, wild rage overcame
Sulla, who was, in point of fact, an impatient young man. He hrst pitched
camp in front of the City with his four legions. This was where he killed
Marius’s envoy, Gratidius, who was in a way the hrst victim of civil war.
He soon broke into the City with his army, calling for torches with which
to hre the City. Everyone hid in terror as he marched with his swift column
along the Sacred Way to the forum. 5. Marius, after he had tried in vain to
persuade the nobility, rouse up the people, or, hnally, arm the Equestrian
Order, to oppose Sulla, as a last resort persuaded some slaves to take up
arms by promising them freedom and plunder. He did not dare resist Sulla
though, and fell back to the Capitol. But when Sulla’s troops forced their
way in there, after his supporters had suffered heavy losses, he fled. 6. It
was here that Marius’s colleague, Sulpicius, was betrayed by one of his own
slaves and laid low. The consuls decreed that this slave be freed because he
had indeed denounced an enemy of the state, but also that he be hurled from
the Tarpeian Rock because he had betrayed his master.

7. Marius fled, buf was cornered by the persistence of his pursuers. After
hiding in the marshes of Minturnae, he had the bad luck to be dragged out
of them in the most shameful fashion, covered in mud. He was taken to
Minturnae, providing a spectacle that added to his disgrace, and was thrust
into the gaol there, but simply his face was enough to reduce to terror the
executioner who had been despatched to deal with him.^^' 8. After this, he

218 Orosius’s chronology is four years awry; these events in fact occurred in 666 At/C/88 BC.

219 Taken virtually verbatim from Eutropius, 5.4.1.

220 This story was notorious in antiquity and is found in Livy, 77.

221 Livy, Per. 77, adds the detail that the executioner was a Gallic slave.

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escaped from his chains and fled to Africa. Here, after summoning his son
from Utica, where he had been kept in custody,he immediately returned
to Rome and joined the consul Cinna in a criminal conspiracy.

9. They divided their army into four parts so that they could lay waste
to the entire state. Three legions were given to Marius. Gnaeus Carbo^^"*
was put in charge of another group of their troops, and Sertorius received
command of a further group. This was the Sertorius who had already stirred
up and been involved in civil war and who, after the end of this war, stirred
up a further war in Spain that was to inflict very heavy losses on the Romans
for many years to come.^^^ The rest of their army had Cinna as its leader.
10. At this point Gnaeus Pompey who, along with his army, had been
summoned by the Senate to help the state, but had remained inactive for a
long time, merely watching the revolution, was spurned by either Marius or
Cinna, took himself off to the other consul, Octavius, and was soon in action
against Sertorius.11. Night put an end to this unhappy conflict in which
600 soldiers on each side were hacked down.

12. On the following day, when the bodies, which were all mixed
together, were identified for burial, one of Pompey’s soldiers recognised
the corpse of his own brother whom he had killed himself, for in the battle
their helmets had denied them sight of each other’s face, and frenzy their
wish to look for them. Although there is little guilt attached to things done in
ignorance and while it appears that he did not know that it was his brother, it
is nevertheless clear he knew it was a citizen he was killing. 13. And so the
victor was more unfortunate than the vanquished and when he recognised
his brother’s body and his act of parricide, he drove his sword into his own
breast on the spot, cursing civil war and, with his tears and blood flowing,
flung himself down on his brother’s corpse.

14. But of what use was this tale, whose terrible news spread abroad at
the very beginning of the civil wars - namely that two men, ignorant that
they were brothers, but knowing that each was a citizen, had fought one

222 G. Marius the younger, who was perhaps Marius’s nephew rather than his son. He had
fled to Numidia where Hiempsal II had put him in under arrest while he watched developments
in Rome.

223 Consul in 87 BC.

224 Gn. Papirius Carbo, a leading supporter of Marius. He was consul in 85, 84, and 82
BC. On Sulla’s triumph he fled to Sicily (see 5.24.16), was captured by Pompey, and executed
at Lilybaeum

225 For a detailed discussion of Sertorius, see Spann (1987).

226 Gn. Pompeius Strabo. His army was a private one. Livy has a much more negative
attitude towards Pompeius than Orosius shows here.

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another and that the brother who had triumphed in his crime then wanted to
strip the spoils from the brother he had slain, and soon, after finding himself
guilty of such an atrocity, using the self-same sword and the self-same hand,
avenged with his own death the parricide he had committed - to confound
this cruel undertaking? 15. Did such a sad story assuage nothing of the zeal
of the factions eager to fight? Did the terror of making such a mistake do
nothing to repel anyone from the danger of committing this crime? Did
piety and reverence born of the nature which we share even with wild beasts
count for nothing? <Was there no one>^^^ who feared that what one man
had done in killing first another and then himself could happen to him and,
overcome by his conscience, remove himself from an undertaking of this
sort?^^® 16. Rather, for almost the next forty years there was continual civil
war on such a scale that the size of a man’s praise was thought to depend on
the size of his crimes. For unless they had wished to commit parricide, after
such a tale everyone would have fled from the danger of parricide present
in this type of soldiering.

17. Marius forced his way into the colony of Ostia and indulged in
every kind of lust, avarice, and cruelty there. 18. Pompey was struck by a
thunderbolt and perished,^^* his army fell victim to plague and was almost
completely destroyed, for 11,000 men from Pompey’s camp perished and
6,000 of Octavius’s command fell victim to a malign star.^^° 19. Marius broke
into the towns of Antium and Aricia like a foreign enemy, killing everyone in

227 There is a lacuna in the text at this point.

228 The incident was widely discussed in antiquity. Orosius would have known it from
Livy, 79, and from Augustine, City of God, 2.25. Unlike Orosius, Augustine says that many
men were moved by the incident and goes on to discuss how the pagan gods, demons to him,
got round their consequent reluctance to fight. Sadly, our summary of Livy makes no mention
of the reaction to the incident and so we cannot be sure whether it is Augustine or Orosius who
has changed the tale for their own purposes.

229 Pompeius Strabo died in September 87 BC. The manner of his death is a little myste¬
rious. Julius Obsequens, 56a, presumably drawing on Livy, tells us that Pompeius was ‘blasted
by a star’, afflatus sidere. Orosius appears to have drawn the same conclusions, describing
Pompeius asflumine adflatus. Others, for example Mommsen, however, have suggested that
Obsequens and Orosius have misread their source and that Livy was in fact refening to plague
not lightning. Plague was often connected with ill-omened stars in antiquity. Velleius Pater¬
culus, 2.21, explicitly states that plague was the cause of Pompeius’s death. For a full discus¬
sion, see Watkins (1988) and Hillard (1996).

230 Reading siderata ‘afflicted by the stars’ with Zangemeister. Orosius here sees the stars
as bringing plague and not as reference to lightning. Arnaud-Lindet reads desiderata which
would produce a translation ‘and the lost of 6,000 men from Octavian’s command was to be
regretted’.

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them, except those who had betrayed the towns to him, and letting his men
plunder the townsfolk’s possessions.^^' Afterwards, the consul Cinna entered
the City with his legions, along with Marius and his runaway slaves. The two
of them killed all the noblest men in the Senate and many former consuls.^^^

20. But how much space should be given to demonstrating their
suffering? Could I have delineated in a single word this slaughter of
good men, so great were their numbers, so great was the length of time it
went on, so great the cruelty, and so great the number of forms it took?
21. Yet it is more reasonable that I should discard some evidence which is
useful for my theme rather than pile up such a great list of horrors in my
account, whether it be placed before those whose know about these events
or are ignorant of them. 22. We are talking about things which concern our
country,^^"' its citizens, and our ancestors who, tormented by these troubles,
did such horrendous deeds that their descendants shudder even on hearing
of them. They certainly do not wish these things to be exaggerated to excess,
either through moderation from having sufficient acquaintance with them,
if they know of them, or through respectful and sympathetic contemplation,
if they do not.

23. Marius piled up the heads of the citizens he had killed as a decora¬
tive spectacle, having them taken in to his banquets, taken up to the Capitol,
and taken onto the rostrum.^^^ But when he had embarked on his seventh
consulate, alongside Cinna, who was consul for the third time, death finally
carried him off at the beginning of his term of office.^^®

24. Cinna then added to his murder of the good by slaughtering the
wicked. Eor since the band of runaway slaves^^^ Marius had brought to
the city had an insatiable appetite for plunder and gave none of it to the
consuls who had initiated the plundering, he summoned them to the forum,
pretending that he would pay them. Here he surrounded them with soldiers
and wiped them out while they were unarmed. 8,000 runaways were killed
in the City’s forum that day. Cinna himself was killed by his own army
during his fourth consulate.^^*

231 The modem Porto d’Anzio and La Riccia. Livy, Per. 80, adds a third town, Lanuvium.

232 Marius and Cinna entered Rome at the end of 87 BC.

233 There appears to be a lacuna in the text at this point.

234 Orosius here firmly identifies himself with Rome.

235 Livy, Per. 80, only has the heads taken to the rostrum.

236 Marius died on 15 January, 86 BC.

237 The Bardyaei; see Plutarch, Marius, 43.

238 Cinna was lynched at Ancona in the spring of 84 BC; see Livy, Per. 83.

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1. Meanwhile, the remnants of the Senate, who had fled to escape from the
despotism of Cinna, Marius’s cruelty, the madness of Fimbria,^^® and Serto-
rius’s arrogance, crossed over to Greece and through their pleading forced
Sulla to bring aid to their country which was now in danger, or rather on the
brink of destruction. 2. Sulla, soon after landing on the shore of Campania,
defeated the consul Norbanus in battle.^'*® On that day, Romans killed 7,000
Romans, and 6,000 more were taken prisoner by their own countrymen. 124
of Sulla’s men perished.

3. Fabius Hadrianus, who had the powers of a praetor, tried to take
control of the kingdom of Africa with a band of slaves. The masters of those
slaves burnt him alive along with all his family on a pyre of wood at Utica.^"^'

4. The praetor Damasipus, incited by the consul Marius,^"^^ summoned
Quintus Scaevola, Gaius Garbo, Lucius Domitius, and Publius Antistius to
the senate-house on the pretext of wanting their advice and then cruelly
killed them. The bodies of the slain were dragged away on hooks by their
butchers and thrown into the Tiber.

5. At the same time, Sulla’s generals waged many battles against
Marius’s men with most unfortunate good fortune. For Quintus Metellus^"*^
destroyed Carrinas’s^''^ forces and entered his camp, while Gnaeus Pompey

239 G. Flavius Fimbria, a partisan of Marius, took control, illegally, of the army sent from
Rome to Asia Minor. He fought Mithridates with a degree of success, but Sulla succeeded
in seducing his army to desert and he committed suicide in 85 BC. The ‘madness’ may be a
reference to his sack of Ilium discussed at length by Augustine, City of God, 3.7, who describes
Fimbria as the ‘Vilest of the Romans’, vir spurcissimus Romanorum.

240 Sulla landed in Italy in 83 BC. Norbanus was defeated neai* Mt Tifata to the east of Capua.

241 Drawn from Livy, 86. Hadrianus had been appointed by Cinna’s supporters as governor
of Africa, probably in 85 BC. Orosius is our only witness for Hadrianus’s attempted usuipation
and use of slaves; other sources simply speak of his rapacious government. Valerius Maximus
asserts that the lynching had the approval of the Senate and popular opinion at Rome According
to Cicero, Second Discourses against Verres (2 Verrine), 1.70, and Valerius Maximus, 9.10.2,
the ‘masters’ who lynched Hadrianus were Roman citizens living in Utica. However, Diodorus
Siculus, 31.11.1, states that it was the Uticans who killed Hadrianus. Being burnt alive was a
common Punic form of punishment.

242 The Younger G. Marius, consul in 82 BC.

243 See Livy, Per. 86. Orosius suppresses Livy’s comment that Scaevola, the Pontifex
Maximus, was cut down as he was entering the Temple of Vesta. This detail would have added
to the horror for Livy’s original readers, but not for Orosius nor, he would hope, for his readers.
Augustine, City of God, 3.28, on the other hand, does give these details.

244 Son of the Metellus mentioned at 5.15.7.

245 A praetor in 82 BC.

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cut Garbo’s cavalry to pieces.^'*®

6. The largest battle was that between Sulla and the young Marius at
Sacriportus^'*^ in which, according to Claudius,^'** 25,000 of Marius’s army
were cut down.

7. Pompey drove Garbo from his camp and pursued him as he fled,
depriving him of the greater part of his army, either by killing them or
forcing them to surrender.Metellus crushed Norbanus’s troops, slaying
9,000 of Marius’s faction.

8. Lucullus^^® was besieged by Quintius,^’' made a sally, and annihilated
the besieging army with his sudden attack. More than 10,000 are said to
have been slain in that battle.

9. Finally, Sulla fought the Samnites’ general, Camponius, and the
remnants of Carrinas’s troops before the City itself at the Colline Gate at
the ninth hour of the day. After a flerce battle, he finally emerged trium¬
phant. 80,000 men are said to have perished there. 12,000 surrendered.^^^
The unquenchable wrath of those citizens who had triumphed put an end to
the rest after they turned to flee.

1. Soon after he had entered the City in triumph, Sulla, contrary what was
right and what he had promised, executed 3,000 men who had surrendered
themselves via envoys and were unarmed as they felt themselves secure.
Then many more, they say more than 9,000, were also cut down; men whom
I would not say were merely innocent, but in fact belonged to Sulla’s own
faction. In this way, unrestrained slaughter was unleashed on the city.^^^
Murderers wandered wherever greed or anger took them. 2. While all were
already openly complaining about what each one of them feared would

246 Gnaeus Pompey is Pompey the Great. Garbo was consul in 82 BC.

247 Unknown, but near Praeneste.

248 Claudius Quadrigarius, a contemporary of these events. Orosius is most likely to have
recorded this second-hand via Livy, 87.

249 In 82 BC; see Livy, Per. 88.

250 M. Terentius Varro Lucullus who would be consul in 73 BC; see 5.24.1.

251 Probably one of Carbo’s lieutenants.

252 The battle took place on 1 December 82 BC. Eutropius, 5.8, gives the losses as 58,000
dead, with 12,000 taken prisoner.

253 Livy, Per 88, has 8,000 victims and implies that they were those who had sun'endered
on trust. Augustine, City of God, 3.28, has 7,000 victims with a similar implication. Orosius
has probably misread Livy here.

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happen to himself, Quintus Catulus said to Sulla’s face, ‘In the end, if we
slay the armed in battle, and the unarmed in peacetime, with whom will we
live?’

3. It was then that Sulla, at the suggestion of a chief centurion, Lucius
Fursidius, first published his infamous list of proscriptions. At first 80 men
were proscribed, including four former consuls, Carbo, Marius, Norbanus,
and Scipio.^^'^ Among the rest was Sertorius, the man he feared most. 4.
Another list of 500 names was then posted. While Lollius was reading this,
feeling secure and unaware of having done anything wrong, he suddenly
came across his own name - he was killed while slinking from the forum in
terror with his head covered.5. But not even these lists could be trusted
or put an end to these crimes - for some who had been proscribed had their
throats cut, while others had their throats cut and then were proscribed. 6.
Nor was their death an easy one or the only suffering which was inflicted on
them}^^ Nor in this murder of citizens was even the law between enemies
kept - namely that the victors require nothing of the vanquished save their
lives.

7. After Marcus Marius had been dragged from a goat-house, Sulla
ordered that he be bound, taken across the Tiber to the tomb of the Lutatii,
and be butchered by having his eyes gouged out and his limbs cut off, or
rather broken, piece by piece.8. After this, the senator Publius Laeto-
rius^^* and the triumvir Venuleius were slain.^^® Marcus Marius’s head was
sent to Praeneste and, on seeing it. Gains Marius fell into to the depths of
despair. In the place where he was being besieged by Lucretius,^™ he made
a suicide pact with Telesinus^*' in order to avoid falling into the hands of
the enemy 9. However, he drove his sword too fiercely into Telesinus as he
came on against him and the wound weakened the hand of his assailant.

254 L. Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, consul in 83 BC.

255 Lollius is otherwise unknown.

256 A strong verbal reminiscence of Virgil, Georgies, 3.482. The previous line is quoted
at 7.27.10.

257 Marius’s adopted nephew, M. Marius Gratidianus. He had prosecuted Q. Lutatius
Catulus in 87 BC, forcing him to commit suicide.

258 Orosius seems to have misread Plaetorius (see Valerius Maximus, 9.2.1, and Florus,
2.9.26) as two names.

259 Venuleius was probably a triumvir capitalis, a minor official concerned with execu¬
tions. He may have been a triumvir monetalis, an official concerned with minting, but as no
coins bearing his name have been found this is unlikely.

260 Q. Lucretius Ofella, a Marian who had changed sides.

261 The brother of the Samnites’ leader.

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Telesinus died, but Marius suffered only a light wound and so offered his
neck to a slave.^*’^

10. Sulla also murdered the praetor Carrinas. He then set out for
Praeneste and ordered that all the principal members of Marius’s army,
namely its lieutenants, quartermasters, prefects, and tribunes be slain.

11. Pompey dragged Garbo, who was trying to flee from the island of
Cossura^®^ to Egypt, back into his presence in Sicily, and slew him along
with many of his friends.

12. Sulla was made dictator in order to protect and mask his lust for
power and cruelty through the reverence due to a noble and exceptional
title.^®®

13. Pompey crossed to Africa, made a thrust around Utica and killed
18,000 men. Domitius,^“ the Marians’ leader, fought in the front rank in this
battle and was killed. 14. The same Pompey went on to attack Hiertas,^®^
the king of Numidia, and engineered that as he fled, he was stripped of
all his troops hy Bogud, the son of Bocchus, king of the Moors. Hierbas
was brought back to Bulla^*’* and Pompey killed him as soon as this town
surrendered to him.

1. When Publius Servilius and Appius Claudius were made consuls, Sulla
was Anally to be seen as a private citizen.^® 2. This brought to an end two
calamitous wars: the Social War waged against the Italians and the Civil War
waged by Sulla.^’“ These had dragged on for ten years and taken the lives
of more than 150,000 Romans. 3. Rome lost as many of her best men and
home-born soldiers in this civil war as the numbers which in a previous age
when she reviewed herself with an eye to Alexander the Great, the census
enrolled in their distinct age groups.^^' 4. Moreover, 24 former consuls were

262 Marius died in November 82 BC; see Livy, Per. 88.

263 The modern Pantelaria, which lies between Sicily and Africa.

264 Orosius oddly suppresses Livy’s detail that Carbo died ‘weeping like a woman’; see
Per. 89.

265 Sulla was elected dictator at the end of 82 BC.

266 Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus, proscribed by Sulla; see Livy, Per. 89.

267 Normally spelt larbas.

268 Bulla Regia, whose ruins are in the Bagradas valley in western Tunisia.

269 675Af/C/79BC.

270 Similar phrasing is found in Eutropius, 5.9.2.

271 According to Livy, 9.19.2, this was a total of 250,000 men.

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killed along with six former praetors, 60 former aediles, and almost 200
senators, quite apart from innumerable settlements all over Italy that were
destroyed out of hand.^’^ Who then would deny, if he is sane, that Rome in
her triumph suffered the same loss as Italy did by her defeat.

5. For shame! Is there any need here too for an ambiguous comparison
between these two ages? ‘A very great need,’ they say, ‘for what could be
more appropriate as to compare a civil war with a civil war? Or perhaps it
will be asserted that there have been no civil wars in our times?’

6. To these critics we will reply that it would indeed be more accurate to
call them wars against allies, but it will be to our advantage if they are called
civil wars. For if the causes, names, and practice of all these wars are held
to be the same, then reverence for the Christian religion can make all the
greater claim for itself in these events as the enraged violence of the victors
has been all the less presumptuous.

7. Many wicked tyrants have been created and armed by the peoples
of Britain and Gaul and, rashly invading the republic and usurping its
royal name, broken the body of the Roman Empire asunder, and so they
have provoked just wars waged against them or fought unjust wars among
themselves.^’^ 8. What can these wars, which are as similar to conflicts with
foreigners as they are dissimilar to those against fellow-citizens, be justly
called except wars against allies, especially since the Romans have never
even called the war against Sertorius, or those against Perpenna,^’'* Crixus,
or Spartacus,^^^ civil wars?

9. During such a defection, or act of treason, by our allies, there would
be less hatred now if it came to a fierce battle or a bloody victory. 10. For
in our time all these things are brought about more by necessity and so are
less shameful. These are the reasons for our battles and victories: to end
the arrogance of tyrants, to stop our allies defecting, or to underline an act
of vengeance.11. Who can doubt that the so-called civil wars of today
are fought with more mildness and mercy, or indeed suppressed rather than
fought?

272 cf. Eutropius, 5.9, who gives almost identical figures, save for the giving the number of
murdered ex-praetors as seven. He makes no mention of the destroyed settlements.

273 Orosius may have in mind Magnus Maximus’s usurpation of AD 383-88 and that of
Constantine III in AD 408-11, and the latter’s consequent dispute with his field marshal or
magister militum, Gerontius.

274 More con'ectly Peiperna, a lieutenant and, later, murderer of Sertorius.

275 Crixus was associated with Spaitacus’s uprising for which see 5.24 below.

276 Orosius’s reasons do not seem that far away from that famously given by Virgil to
Aeneas by Anchises at Aeneid 6.853 — debellare superbos, ‘to humble the haughty by war’.

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12. Who has heard of one civil war in our times that lasted for ten years,
or a war when 150,000 were slain waged even between enemies, let alone
between fellow citizens?

13. Who has known a host of the great and good, lengthy to recite, to
be butchered in peacetime? Finally, who has feared, read, or even heard
of those notorious lists of men condemned to death? 14. Rather is it not
clear to all that everyone, united in a single peace and secure in the same
state of security, victors and vanquished alike, rejoices in a shared joy and
that, indeed, in the many provinces, towns, and peoples of the Roman
Empire there is hardly anyone who has at any time been condemned to just
vengeance and that against the wishes of their conqueror.15. And so as
not to load more words onto what I have already said, I would not be rash if
I said that at all events that the numbers of the nobility slain in peace-time in
those times equals the number of common soldiers who have died in battle
in our days.^^*

16. Now on the death of Sulla, a supporter of the Marian faction,
Lepidus, attacked Catulus, the leader of Sulla’s supporters, and rekindled
the embers of civil war.™ Twice there was a fight with battle-lines drawn up,
and great numbers of Romans, already wretchedly poor, but still possessing
the frenzy of madmen, were cut down. The town of Alba, besieged and
brought to the edge of starvation, was saved only by the surrender of those
wretches who still survived. It was here that Lepidus’s son, Scipio,^*® was
captured and killed. Brutus^*' fled to Cisalpine Gaul with Pompey in pursuit
and was killed at Rhegium. 18. So this civil war, like a fire in the stubble,
burnt out as quickly as it started, not so much because of Catulus’s clemency
as through loathing at Sulla’s cruelty.

1. 673 years after the foundation of the City, the clamour of war could
be heard everywhere. One war was being waged in Spain, another in
Pamphylia, a third in Macedonia, and a fourth in Dalmatia. And yet at this
time the Roman Republic, lifeless and exhausted from its internecine strife

277 Perhaps a reference to Honorius sparing the life of the usurper Attains; see 7.42.9.

278 cf. Orosius’s comments on the Gallic sack of Rome, 2.19.14

279 M. Aemilius Lepidus and Q. Lutatius Catulus were the consuls of 78 BC.

280 Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus; see 5.24.16.

281 M. Junius Brutus, one of Lepidus’s lieutenants and the father of Caesar’s assassin.

282 A baroque version of the events listed in Livy, 90.

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as if suffering from fever, was forced to drive back with her arms the stron¬
gest of the western and northern races.

2. Sertorius, a man who excelled in cunning and daring, after fleeing
from Sulla out of Africa, since he belonged to the Marian faction, had ended
up in the Spains and roused the most bellicose tribes there to armed rebel¬
lion. 3. To give a brief account, two commanders, Metellus and Domitius,
were despatched against him.^*^ Out of these, Domitius was destroyed along
with his army by Sertorius’s general, Hirtuleius. 4. Manlius, the proconsul in
Gaul,^*'* crossed into Spain with three legions and 1,500 horse, and fought an
unequal battle against Hirtuleius. After Hirtuleius had stripped him of both
his camp and his army, he fled, almost by himself, to the town of Ilerda.^*^

5. Metellus was weary after fighting many battles, but, by moving
through remote areas, wore down his enemy with delaying tactics until he
reached Pompey’s camp.^*®

6. Pompey had raised an army at Palencia and tried to defend the town
of Lauro^*’ which was being attacked by Sertorius, but was defeated and
fled. 7. Sertorius, on defeating and routing Pompey, captured Lauro and laid
waste to it in a bloody fashion. He dragged off the remnants of Lauro’s
population, who had survived the slaughter, into slavery in Lusitania. 8. He
bragged about his defeat of Pompey - Rome’s famous general, who come to
fight this war full of confidence, whom Rome had despatched not in place of
a consul, but in the place of both consuls9. Galba^*® writes that Pompey
had 30,000 men and 1,000 cavalry at the time, and notes that Sertorius had
60,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry.^®"

10. After this, Hirtuleius met with Metellus outside Italica, a city in
Baetica,^®' lost 20,000 men and, on his defeat, retreated with what few men

283 Q. Caecilius Metellus Pius, consul, and M. Domitius Calvinus, praetor, in 80 BC.

284 The proconsul of Transalpine Gaul in 676 AUCIIS BC.

285 The modem Lerida.

286 Pompey’s campaign in Spain began in early 76 BC.

287 Probably Liria in the province of Valencia.

288 A close paraphrase of Cicero, Speech in favour of the Manilian Law (Pro Lege Manilia),
21.62.

289 Ser. Sulpicius Galba, historian and grandfather of the emperor Galba. Suetonius, Galba,
3.3, praises his historical writing.

290 Orosius has a strong dislike of Sertorius and this comment serves to underline his boast¬
fulness.

291 The modem Santiponce, just outside Seville. Orosius’s use of Baetica is anachronistic
as this province, roughly the ai'ea of modern Andalusia, was not created until the reign of
Augustus.

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he had left into Lusitania.

11. Pompey captured Belgida, a famous town in Celtiberia.^®^ Sertorius
then fought Pompey and killed 10,000 of his men. Sertorius almost lost as
many men on the opposite flank of the battle where Pompey was fighting
with success.

12. Many other battles were fought by these two. Memmius, Pompey’s
quarter-master and husband of his sister, was killed, as were Hirtuleius’s
brothers, and Perpenna who had thrown his lot in with Sertorius, suffered
heavy losses.

13. Einally in the tenth year after the war had begun, the death of Serto¬
rius, who was killed, like Viriatus, by the treachery of his own men, brought
the war to a close and gave the Romans victory, though no glory.Although
part of Sertorius’s army then followed Perpenna, he was defeated and killed
along with all his troops by Pompey.

14. All the towns of Spain were recovered, as they surrendered immedi¬
ately of their own free will. Only two resisted: Uxama^^® and Calagurris.^^®
Pompey destroyed Uxama, and Afranius^®^ destroyed Calagurris with fire
and slaughter, after exhausting it in an interminable siege that forced its
inhabitants in their wretched state of starvation to turn to vile forms of suste¬
nance.^®*

15. Sertorius’s assassins did not even consider asking for a reward from
the Romans as they remembered that such a reward had been denied to
Viriatus’s assassins. 16. Although these murderers gave security to Rome,
but gained no reward for themselves, nevertheless Spain, ever loyal and
mighty, though she has given excellent, invincible kings to the republic has
never, from the earliest days down to our own, sent her a home-born tyrant
or let any foreign tyrant who came to her leave alive or with any power.

17. Meanwhile, Claudius, who had been allotted the Macedonian
War,*®’ attempted to drive out by force the various tribes who lived round

292 An error for Segeda, located near Calatayud.

293 See Livy, Per. 92.

294 Sertorius was murdered in 72 BC.

295 Uxama’s ruins lie just outside the modern Burgo de Osma.

296 The modem Calahorra.

297 A lieutenant of Pompey who was to reach the consulate in 60 BC.

298 A euphemism for cannibalism. See Valerius Maximus, 7.6. ext. 3.

299 This is probably an allusion to the demise of Gerontius, Constantine Ill’s one-time
magister militum, who, on falling out with his former master, attempted to set up an independent
regime in Spain; see 7.42.4-5.

300 Ap. Claudius Pulcher, the consul of 79 BC, and proconsul of Macedonia in 76 BC.

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the Rhodope mountains^®' and who were at that time were laying waste
to Macedonia in a horrendous fashion. 18. Among the rest of the tortures
that they inflicted on their prisoners, which are terrible both to speak, and
listen, about, when they needed a cup, they happily used, as if they were
genuine cups and with no sense of repulsion, blood-stained bones that they
took from human skulls, with hair still sticking to them and their insides
smeared with badly scraped out brains. The cruellest and most savage of
these tribes were the Scordisci.^“ 19. It was these tribes, as I was saying, that
Claudius attempted to drive out from the borders of Macedonia and brought
a great number of troubles on his own head. As a result, while he was sick
at heart and surrounded by cares, he fell ill and died. 20. His successor,
Scribonius,^®^ declined to force the issue with the tribes his predecessor
had fought, turned his arms on Dardania instead, and captured it.^®'' 21.
The former consul Publius Servilius^®^ set about Cilicia and Pamphylia in a
terrible fashion through his eagerness to subdue them, and almost destroyed
them altogether. 22. He also captured Lycia, besieging and destroying its
cities. In addition to this, he crossed Mount Olympus,^®® razed Phasis to
the ground,^®’ sacked Corycus,®®* and combing the flanks of Mount Taurus
where it borders on Cilicia, he broke the Isaurians in battle and brought them
under Roman control. He was the first Roman to march an army through the
Taurus mountains and open up a road through them. In the third year of the
war, he received the name Isauricus.^®®

23. The proconsul Cosconius®'® was allotted the Illyrian War. He wore
down and subdued Dalmatia, and finally, after two years, took by storm and
captured the flourishing town of Salonae.^*'

301 These mountains lie on the borders of the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria.

302 A Thracian/Illyrian tribe living in what is now Serbia. For the savagery of the Scordisci
and their use of skulls, see Florus, 1.39.2-3.

303 G. Scribonius Curio, consul in 76 BC and proconsul in Macedonia from 75 to 72 BC.

304 The modern Kosovo; see Livy, Per. 92.

305 P. Servilius Vatia, consul in 79 BC and proconsul in Cilicia in 78 BC.

306 The Mount Olympus of Asia Minor; see 1.2.26.

307 The modem Poti in Georgia.

308 The modern Ghorghos in Turkey.

309 See Eutropius, 6.3, and Livy, Per. 93.

310 Proconsul in Illyria from 78 to 76 BC.

311 Near modem Split in Croatia; see Eutropius, 6.3.

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1. 679 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Lucullus
and Cassius, 64 gladiators fled from the barracks of Gnaeus Lentulus at
Capuaf^^ Under the leadership of the Gauls, Crixus and Oenomaus, and a
Thracian, Spartacus, they immediately occupied Mount Vesuvius. Sallying
forth from here, they captured the camp of the praetor Clodius who was
besieging them. After putting Clodius to flight, they carried off everything
in his camp.

2. Then, marching round by Consentia^'^ and Metapontum,^*'* in a short
time they gathered together a great body of men: for Crixus is said to have
commanded a host of 10,000 men, and Spartacus three times that number.
Oenomaus had already been killed in the first engagement. 3. When they had
thrown everything into confusion through their slaughter, arson, pillage, and
rape, they behaved more like gladiatorial managers rather than commanders
of soldiers, holding gladiatorial games at the funeral of a matron they had
taken prisoner and who had killed herself in shame after being raped. They
used 400 prisoners as participants, and so turned those who used to provide
a spectacle into the spectators of one.

4. After this, the consuls Gellius and Lentulus were despatched with
an army against them.^'^ Gellius defeated Crixus who fought fiercely,
but Lentulus was defeated and put to flight by Spartacus. Afterwards, the
consuls joined forces, but in vain: they suffered a heavy defeat and were put
to flight. Eollowing this, Spartacus also defeated and killed the proconsul
Gaius Cassius.

5. The City was hardly less afraid than it had been when it had trembled
with Hannibal thundering in arms before its gates.^'^ The Senate despatched
Crassus^'* with the consuls’ legions and a new batch of reinforcements.

6. He soon came to battle with the runaways, killing 6,000 of them and
capturing another 900. Then before he attacked Spartacus himself, who was
encamped by the head of the river Silarus,^'® he defeated his Gallic and

312 Orosius’s date is two years out; these events in fact occurred in 681 At/C/73 BC. The
italicised phrase is taken virtually verbatim from Livy, 95.

313 The modem Consenza.

314 The modem Metaponto.

315 The consuls of 681 At/C/72 BC.

316 Consul in 73 and proconsul in 72 BC.

317 cf. Eutropius, 6.7.

318 M. Licinius Crassus, propraetor in 72 BC and future triumvir.

319 The modem river Sala.

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German allies, killing 30,000 of them along with their leaders.7. Finally,
he drew up his line of battle and came to grips with Spartacus himself,
striking him down along with the vast majority of the runaways. They say
that 60,000 were cut down,^^' 6,000 captured, and 3,000 Roman citizens
rescued. 8. The remaining runaways who had escaped from this battle and
were now wandering about aimlessly, were quickly encircled and destroyed
by a host of commanders.

9. I now, once again, return to my habitual question, is there really,
even at this point, a need to compare these times with ours? Who, I ask,
would not shudder to hear not of such wars, but merely of their very names:
wars against foreigners, wars against slaves, wars against allies, wars
against fellow-citizens, wars against fugitives? 10. Nor do they follow on
from one another, huge though they are, like the waves of a stormy sea,
but roused and piled up by differing causes, pretexts, natures, and evils,
they rush together from all sides at once. 11. To sum up what I have just
discussed, and omitting the shameful war against slaves, the thunder from
the Jugurthine War in Africa had not yet ceased, when the Cimbrian War
descended like lightning from the north-west. 12. While the storm clouds of
the Cimbrian War were still raining down great, foul torrents of shed blood,
poor Italy breathed forth the fog of the Social War that would soon coalesce
into great clouds of wrong. 13. Even after the endless, frequent storms of the
Italian War,^^^ it was not at all possible to travel safely through Italy, where
everyone, quite apart from in the dangerous whirlpools of their enemies’
cities, struggled to keep their footing in the treacherous and slippery peace.
14. And while Rome was giving birth herself to the destruction wrought by
Marius and Cinna, she was menaced by another war, which rose up from
the divers regions of the east and the north: namely the Mithridatic War. For
while the war with Mithridates had begun in an earlier period, it extended
down into later ones.

15. Marius was the torch that lit the funeral pyre of Sulla’s disastrous
regime and from that most baleful of pyres, the Sullan and Civil Wars,
blazing sparks were scattered all over the world, spreading many fires
from this single source. 16. For Lepidus and Scipio in Italy, Brutus in
Gaul, Domitius, Cinna’s son-in-law, in Africa, Carbo in Cossura and Sicily,
Perpenna in Liguria and afterwards with Sertorius in Spain, and Sertorius,

320 Livy, Per. 97, states that these Germans and Gauls were fugitive slaves. Perhaps
Orosius has misread Livy here.

321 Livy, Per 97, gives the same figure.

322 The Social War.

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the most brutal of all of them, also in Spain, stirred up these civil wars, or
whatever else they should be called, making many wars out of one war, and
out of one great war, many great wars. 17. Apart from these three enormous
wars, which were at that time called ‘the foreign wars’, namely the Pamphy-
lian, Macedonian, and Dalmatian Wars, there was the longest, bitterest, and
most dangerous of them all, though this was not apparent at the time, the
great Mithridatic War. 18. At that time, the war in Spain against Sertorius
was not yet finished; indeed, while Sertorius himself was still alive, the war
against runaways, or, to speak more correctly, gladiators, made the state
shudder.^^^ Eor it was not a thing to be watched by a few, but rather one to
be feared everywhere. 19. Although it was called a war against runaways,
no one ought to think it a trifling affair because of its name. Often in it, both
consuls were defeated individually and, at times, together, after they had
combined their forces in vain. Many nobles were butchered, and more than
100,000 of the fugitives themselves were cut down.^^^^

20. From all this we can say that while at present she suffers vexations
from foreigners, Italy can console herself by thinking of her past troubles,
which were born of her, turned themselves on her, and which tore her to
pieces with incomparable cruelty.

21.1 shall, therefore, now put an end to my fifth volume, so that the civil
wars, everywhere mixed in with foreign wars, that I have talked about and
which will follow on in my account, because they cling together through the
passing of time, wrong following on from wrong, may at least be separated
from each other by the end of this book.

323 This is the term used by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abn 1944, in his brief notice of Sparta-
cus’s uprising.

324 Orosius’s Spanish origins are perhaps betrayed by his dwelling on the war with Serto¬
rius. Oddly, despite being deeply hostile to Sertorius, Orosius makes no mention of his many
atrocities which are listed in Livy, Per. 92.

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BOOK SIX

1. All men, whatever their beliefs, way of life, or country, are always drawn
through a gift of nature to look on matters with common sense, so they
know that the reasoning of the mind ought to be chosen over the pleasures
of flesh in their judgment, even if in their acts they do not chose to do this.
The mind, enlightened by its guide, reason, sees, in the midst of the virtues
by which it rises up through an innate disposition, though it is turned from
its path by vices, the knowledge of God as its citadel.' 2. For any man may
spurn God for a time, but it is impossible to be completely ignorant of Him.
This is why some men while knowing God in many things, devise in their
unreasoning terror many gods. However, at the present time this attitude
has been totally dispelled both through the workings of authoritative truth
and the refutations of reason. 3. For their philosophers, to pass over our
saints, when inquiring into and observing everything with all their mental
energy, have found that One God is the Author of all and that all things
ought to be traced back to This One. So now even the pagans, whom the
manifest truth now convicts of insolence rather than ignorance, when they
debate with us, say that they do not follow many gods, but rather venerate
many agents who are ruled by one great god.^ 4. There remains a confused
discrepancy about the apprehension of the True God because of the many
theories about how to apprehend Him, nevertheless one opinion is held by
almost everyone - namely that there is One God. This is the point, albeit
with difficulty, to which man’s investigations have been able to bring him,"'
but where reasoning fails, faith comes to his aid. 5. For unless we have come
to believe, we shall not understand.'' The truth you want to know about God,

1 Perhaps an allusion to Romans 7.7—8.

2 An allusion to neoplatonism.

3 This phrase contains an echo of Virgil, Aeneid, 11.823.

4 This is Augustine’s position, famously summarised by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-
1109) as Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam, ‘For I do not seek
to understand in order to believe, but I believe in order to understand’.

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you must hear from Him Himself and believe Him.

Now this One, True God Whom, as we have said, every sect, albeit
using different arguments, agrees exists. Who transforms kingdoms, orders
history, and punishes sins, choosing the weak of the world in order to throw
the mighty into confusion,^ founded the Roman Empire using a shepherd of
the lowest degree.® 6. After this empire had prospered for a long time under
its kings and consuls and come into possession of Asia, Africa, and Europe,
by His ordinances He gathered everything into the hands of one emperor
who was both the bravest and most merciful of men. 7. Under this emperor
whom almost every people justly honoured with a mixture of fear and love,
the True God Who was worshipped through unsettling superstitions by
those in ignorance, revealed the great fountain of coming to know Him.^
Using a man in order to teach men more swiftly, He sent forth His Son to
perform miracles that surpassed the ability of men and to denounce demons
whom some thought to be gods, so that those who did not believe in the Man
might nevertheless believe that His works were those of God. 8. He also did
this in order that the glory of His New Name and news of the Salvation that
it proclaimed could spread swiftly and without hindrance in great silence
over a land that was at peace far and wide and, indeed, so that his disciples
as they travelled among the divers peoples of the empire, freely offering all
of them the gift of salvation, should have peace and freedom to meet with
others and spread their message as Roman citizens among Roman citizens.*
9.1 thought it right to mention these things since this sixth book runs down
to the time of Augustus Caesar who is the subject of these comments.

10. But in case anyone thinks that this lucid reasoning is wrong and gives
their own gods the credit, saying that they first carefully chose them, and
then enticed them in with lavish worship with the result that through them
they obtained for themselves this great and glorious empire - 11. for they
boast that they became the gods’ favourites by performing the best sorts of
religious rite and that after these were banned and abandoned, they then left
after their shrines and altars were abandoned, all the Gods through whom
this empire has stoodf 12. Eor this reason, although your reverend Holiness

5 1 Corinthians 1.27.

6 i.e. Romulus. It is difficult not to see an implicit comparison with Christ being drawn here.

7 A reminiscence of Exodus 17 with Christ as the new Moses.

8 Orosius appears to be unawai'e that prior to Caracalla’s grant of universal citizenship in
AD 212 the bulk of the population of the Roman Empire were not Roman citizens. See also
6 . 22 . 8 .

9 Virgil, Aeneid, 2.351-52, cf. 6.1.23 below.

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has spoken at length most powerfully and correctly on this matter,'® circum¬
stances require me to make some small observations about their argument.
13. If the Romans won the favour of the gods by worshipping them and lost it
by not worshipping them, whose worship brought the reward that Romulus,
the father of Rome, should have been saved from all the ills that surrounded
him from his birth? Was it his grandfather Amulius," who by exposing him
tried to murder him? Or his father, whoever that was?'^ Or his mother, Rhea,
regaled with adultery?'® Or his relatives from Alba who persecuted the name
of Rome from its earliest beginnings?'"' Or all of Italy, which for 400 years
yearned, whenever it dared, for the destruction of Rome? 15. ‘Not at all,’
they say, ‘it was the gods themselves who, because they knew they would be
worshipped, protected their future worshippers.’ These gods therefore knew
what was to come. 16. If they knew what was to come, why then, among all
the ages they could have chosen, did they bring this empire to the height of
its power at precisely the moment when He chose to be born and be known
as a man - He after Whose Name they themselves were counted for naught
and those whom they had exalted'® collapsed along with their whole world.
17. ‘But He crept into the world in a mean fashion,’ they say, ‘and made
His entrance in secret.’ Then whence came the great fame of this mean and
secretive Man, His undoubted following, and manifest power? ‘Through
some signs or other and miracles He captured and held the minds of those
ensnared by superstition,’ is their reply. But if it was a man that did these
things, the gods ought to have been able to do yet more. 18. Or is it that He
foretold that this power had been given to Him by the Father, and so at last
it was possible to know this Known yet Unknown God, something which,
as I have said, no one can attain save through Him? And no one can do this,
save, after looking at, and despising, himself, he turns to the wisdom of God
and abandons entirely the logic of a seeker for the faith of a believer.

19. To put matters briefly: it is openly agreed that those gods whom
they say are so powerful that they appear to have furthered the cause of the
Roman state when they looked on it propitiously, and to have afflicted it

10 A reference to Augustine’s City of God, which also uses this quotation (2.22 and 3.17).
See 1, Preface 11.

11 Amulius was in fact Romulus’s grandfather’s brother.

12 Pious pagan legend held that Mars was Romulus’s father, but Orosius will not counte¬
nance this. Augustine, City of God, 18.21, later returned to this theme.

13 Orosius puns Rhea with rea, accused.

14 A reference to the legend of the Horatii and Curiatii; see Augustine, City of God, 3.14.

15 Perhaps a reference to pagan priests.

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when they were hostile to it, were most devoutly and sincerely worshipped
at that time when Christ willed Himself to be bom and began to be known
to the nations. 20. So why were they unable to look to their own and their
worshippers’ interests and restrain or repel that ‘superstition’ concerning
Him by which they saw that they would be spurned and their worship¬
pers left destitute? If men adhered to it unwillingly, the gods ought to have
pardoned them and not abandoned them, while if they did it willingly, the
gods ought to have used their knowledge of the future and not helped them
prior to this. 21. ‘This was done,’ they say, ‘for we roused up the nations,
inflamed kings, passed laws, sent out judges, prepared our punishments of
execution and cruciflxion, we combed the whole world to see if the name
of Christian and Christian worship could in any way be obliterated from the
entire earth.’ 22. This was indeed done until this prolific savagery advanced
it among, and through, its tortures until it seized the only thing that could
restrain it, the heights of royalty. 23. And what happened then? ‘Christian
emperors,’ they say, ‘commanded an end to sacrifices and that the temples
be closed so that there then departed after their shrines and altars were
abandoned, all the Gods through whom this empire has stood.’

24. O how powerful and lucid is the light of Tmth, if only the feeble
eyes to which It freely offers Itself were not tragically closed against It.
There was no way of suppressing the Christian faith in the centuries gone
by when nations, kings, laws, murder, crucifixion, and death raged against
it from all sides; rather, as I have said, it flourished among and because of
these things. The cult of idols that was already failing of its own accord and
ashamed of itself, ceased, without any fear of punishment, on one merciful
command.'^ 25. Who can doubt that through revelation of apprehending
Him that His creation finally learnt about their Creator the things which up
to that time had been sought by various reasoning processes of the mind
and which, though the mind was eager, had been obscured by other matters,
and that because of this it at once cleaved to the love of Him Whom it had
desired even in its ignorance? 26. It is no wonder if some slaves are found
in a great household who, after becoming accustomed to the habits and
lasciviousness of those led astray, abuse the patience of their master to the
extent of treating him with contempt. And so God rightly chastises with a
variety of punishments the ungrateful, disbelievers, and, indeed, the contu¬
macious. 27. We must admit that this has always been the case, but was

16 Yirgil, Aeneid, 2.351-52, see 6.1.11 above.

17 A reference to the edict of Theodosius the Great on 24 Februaiy AD 391 which banned
pagan worship, Theodosian Code, 16.10.10.

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especially so at the time when there was still no Church in any part of the
world which could, through the intervention of the prayers of the faithful,
temper the punishment the world deserved and the just judgment of God hy
appealing to His mercy. So things of whatever kind that seem bad to men,
were, without a doubt, worse in the past, as will be shown by the order in
which they occurred.

28. The Mithridatic War or, I should say more correctly, the disaster of
the Mithridatic War, which entangled many provinces, dragged on for forty
years.'® 29. It flared up 661 years after the foundation of the City at the time
of the first civil war, as I have mentioned,'^ and to quote the words of the
greatest of poets was only finished with barbarian poison in the consulate
of Cicero and Antonius.^" 30. In the records of those times one finds that the
war lasted for thirty years, so it is not easy to see why the majority of authors
speak of it lasting for forty.^'

1. After Mithridates, the king of Pontus and Armenia, attempted to deprive
Nicomedes, the king of Bithynia and a friend of the Roman people,^^ of
his kingdom, he was warned by the Senate that if he tried to do this, he
would bring down war with Rome on himself. He then immediately invaded
Cappadocia in his fury, expelling its king, Ariobarzanes, and laying waste to
the whole province with sword and fire.^® 2. He then seized Bithynia causing
a similar catastrophe and subjected Paphlagonia to a like end, driving out
her kings, Pylaemenes and Nicomedes.^"* After Mithridates had reached
Ephesus, he promulgated a cruel edict that any Roman citizens found across

18 For a full account of Mithridates, see Reinach (1980).

19 5.19.1. Here the date given is 662 AUC. Orosius has either forgotten himself or the
manuscript tradition has become corrupt.

20 Lucan, Pharsalia, 1.337, a reference to Mithridates’ suicide. Cicero and Antonius were
consuls in 63 BC.

21 cf. 5.19.2. Eutropius, 5.5, and Florus, 1.40.2, speak of 40 years, Justin, 37.1.7, of 46
years. Orosius calculates the war as starting in 662 AUC and ending in 691 AUC.

22 Nicomedes IV Philopator, c. 94-74 BC.

23 Ariobarzanes I Philoromanus, c. 95-c. 62 BC, who had been placed on his throne by
Rome.

24 Orosius has drawn this section from Eutropius, 5.5, but has misread his source, making
both Pylaemenes and Nicomedes kings of Paphlagonia. In fact, Eutropius is referring here to
Nicomedes IV of Bithynia, mentioned in the previous sentence. Pylaemenes was an honorific
name taken by all kings of Paphlagonia; see Justin, 37.4.

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all of Asia^® should all be murdered on a single day. And this was carried
out. 3. It is impossible in any way either to describe, or conceive, in words
the multitude of Roman citizens slain at that time, the sorrow that befell
a great number of provinces, or the cries which rose up from those killed
and their killers alike - for one and all were forced to betray their innocent
guests and friends or risk suffering the penalty intended for their guests
themselves.^^

4. Archelaus, Mithridates’ general, was despatched with 120,000 cavalry
and infantry to Achaea^* and captured Athens and all of Greece, in part by
force and in part through its surrendering to him. 5. Sulla, who had obtained
the command of the Mithridatic war after his consulate, subjected Archelaus
to a long siege in the Piraeus, Athens’ port, which was fortified with seven
walls, and took the city of Athens by force.® He then fought Archelaus in
open battle: 110,000 men from Archelaus’s army fell - scarcely 10,000 are
said to have survived.^® 6. After he learnt of this disaster, Mithridates sent
70,000 of his best troops to Archelaus from Asia as reinforcements. 50,000
of these were killed in a second battle in which Diogenes, Archelaus’s son,
was hacked to death.7. A third battle destroyed all Archelaus’s forces,
for 20,000 of his soldiers were driven into the marshes^^ and, although they
pleaded for mercy to Sulla, the victor’s implacable anger destroyed them.^'*
An equal number were driven into the river and slaughtered.^^ The wretched
remnants of the army were butchered as they scattered.

8. Then, Mithridates decided to kill the leading men of the most important
towns of Asia and confiscate their property. After he had already killed 1,600

25 i.e. the Roman province of that name comprising western Turkey.

26 Sections 1 and 2 closely follow and simplify Europius, 5.5.

27 cf. Augustine, City of God, 3.22.

28 The figures are taken from Eutropius, 5.6. Achaea is the Roman province of that name
which comprised south and central Greece.

29 Sulla entered Athens on 1 March 86 BC.

30 The Battle of Chaeronea, April 86 BC. Orosius follows Eutropius’s, 5.6, account of the
battle. Livy, Per. 82, says Archelaus lost 100,000 men.

31 Eutropius, 5.6, has the same number of reinforcements sent by Mithridates, but states
that 15,000, not 50,000, died in the battle. Orosius, following Eutropius, mistakenly says that
Archelaus’s nephew Diogenes was his son.

32 Taken almost verbatim from Eutropius, 5.6.

33 Lake Copais.

34 Orosius following Eutropius, 5.6, has turned the two days of the Battle of Orchomenus,
fought in the autumn of 86 BC, into two distinct battles. In Eutropius’s account, it is Archelaus,
rather than his men, who hides in the marshes.

35 The river Cephisus which flows into Lake Copais.

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in this way, the Ephesians, fearing the example that had been set, expelled
Mithridates’ garrison and barred their gates against him. Smyrna, Sardis,
Colophon, and Trallia did likewise. 9. Mithridates, his plans in confusion,
made peace with Sulla though his general Archelaus.^*

Meanwhile, Fimbria, a henchman in Marius’s crime, who was capable
of anything,^^ killed the consul Flaccus, with whom he had come as his
lieutenant, at Nicomedia. 10. Soon, after usurping command of the army,
he sent Mithridates’ son fleeing from Asia to the town of Miletopolis.^*
He attacked the king’s position, drove him from Pergamum, pursued him
as he fled, and besieged him at Pitana.^^ He would have certainly captured
him, had Lucius Lucullus put the republic’s interests above those of internal
factionalism and wished to block him off from the sea with his fleet.'^®

11. Fimbria then became enraged with the people of Ilium who, as they
supported Sulla, openly rejected him and barred their gates against him.
He went on to raze to the ground with slaughter and fire the famous city
of Ilium, Rome’s ancient kinsman, though Sulla at once rebuilt it.'^' This
same Fimbria, after he was besieged by Sulla’s army at Thyatira,'*^ fell into
despair and died by his own hand in the Temple of Aesculapius."^^

12. Two refugees from Fimbria’s army, Fannius and Magius, joined
Mithridates, and on their advice Mithridates sent envoys to Spain and made
a pact with Sertorius. Sertorius sent Marcus Marius to him to ratify the
treaty. The king kept Marius with him and in a short time made him general
instead of Archelaus who had taken himself off to Sulla along with his wife
and children.

13. Mithridates despatched his generals Marius and Eumachus against
Lucullus. They quickly mustered a great army and met Publius Rutilius at
Chalcedon, killing him along with most of his army."*"*

36 The negotiations for the Peace of Dardanus. Once again, Orosius is strikingly favourable
in his attitude towards Sulla here - the peace was generally regarded as a disgrace.

37 This judgment is drawn from Livy, 82.

38 A town in Mysia, the modem Hammamli in Turkey.

39 The modern Sanderli in Turkey.

40 L. Licinius Lucullus, consul in 74 BC.

41 85 BC.

42 The modem Ak-Hissar in Turkey.

43 Orosius, no doubt, wants the reader to savour of the irony of Fimbria dying in a temple
of a pagan god of healing. His suicide would have underlined his worthlessness in Orosius’s
eyes and appears to be an embroidery by him - according to Livy, Per. 84, Fimbria commanded
one of his slaves to kill him.

44 P. Rutilius Nudus. Rutilius was one of the other consul Marcus Aurelius Cotta’s
lieutenants. Orosius appears to have confused his defeat with the major defeat of the consul

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14 . While Mithridates was besieging Cyzicus, Lucullus hemmed him in
with a ditch and so forced him to suffer what he was making others suffer.
To keep the Cyzicenes in good heart, he sent them as a messenger one of
his troops who knew how to swim. This man held onto a central pole with
an inflated bladder on either side and, using his feet like oars, covered a
distance of seven miles."^^ 15 . As he was suffering from lack of supplies,
Mithridates ordered part of his army to be marshalled under arms and march
home. They were caught by Lucullus and completely destroyed - for it is
said that more than 15,000 men were killed in this action.

16 . After this Eannius, who had allied himself with Mithridates, and
Metrophanes, the king’s praetor, were defeated by Mamercus. They fled to
Mysia with 2,000 cavalry and crossing Maeonia came to the hills and fields
of Inarime. 17 . Here not only the mountains look burnt up and the rocks as
if they are covered by a sort of black soot, but the very fields themselves
lie neglected and covered with burnt soil for a distance of 50 miles, though
there is no trace of a fire or furnace. They lie there crumbling away with ash
extending deep down into the ground; in three places parched craters that
the Greeks call ‘physae’ can be seen."^'’ 18 . After wandering across this land
for a long time, they were finally delivered from their unexpected dangers
and came secretly into the king’s camp.

Deiotarus, the king of the Gallograeci,"^’ killed the king’s prefects in battle.

19 . Meanwhile, Mithridates, besieged at Cyzicus, endured the same
length of blockade as those he was besieging and reduced his army to the
straits of great hunger and disease. He is said to have lost more than 300,000
men through starvation and disease in this siege. He himself seized a ship
and secretly fled from his camp with a few men."** 20 . Lucullus watched the
disaster from afar without a drop of his own men’s blood being spilled and
so won a new form of victory. Soon afterwards, he attacked and defeated
Marius, putting him to flight. In this battle, more than 11,000 of Marius’s
troops are said to have been killed. 21 . Afterwards, Lucullus engaged the

himself at Chalcedon; see Livy, Per. 93.

45 Cyzicus was joined to the mainland by an artificial causeway. This was occupied by
Mithridates, thus forcing Lucullus’s messenger to swim a great distance to reach the besieged
town. Orosius is our only source that this distance was seven miles. Frontinus, Strategems,
3.13.6, adds that Lucullus’s messages were placed in the bladders

46 The Kula volcanic field in north-west Turkey. For Inarime, see Servius, Ad Virgilii
Aeneidos, 9.715 22, which shows Orosius drew his details from Livy, 94. Orosius’s ‘physae’
are shallow volcanic craters known as ‘maars’.

47 The Galatians. Orosius’s source for this campaign is Livy, 94.

48 The account of the siege of Cyzicus is taken from Livy, 95.

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same Marius in a naval battle and sank or captured 32 of the king’s ships and
a great number of merchantmen. Many of those whom Sulla had proscribed
perished here."^® 22. On the following day, Marius was dragged out of the
cave where he was hiding and rightly paid the price for being an enemy of
the state. 23. Lucullus went on in this same campaign to attack and lay waste
to Apamia,®° and storm, capture, and sack the heavily defended city of Prusa
that lies below Mount Olympus.®' 24. Mithridates marshalled his fleet and
sailed against Byzantium, but was caught in a storm and lost 80 warships.
As his own ship was battered by the storm and sinking, he leapt onto a skiff
that belonged to the pirate Seleucus, the pirate giving him a helping hand
in person. He then with great difficulty went to Sinope and on to Amisus.®^

1 . In the same year,®® Catiline was accused of immorality at Rome. The
charge was that he had committed this with Fabia, a Vestal Virgin. However,
with Catulus’s aid he escaped conviction.®"*

2. Lucullus laid siege to Sinope with the intention of storming it. The
pirate king Seleucus and the eunuch Cleochares, who had been placed in
charge of its defence, sacked and burnt the town, and then abandoned it.

3. Lucullus was moved by the disaster his wretched enemies had brought
upon themselves, and, after advancing swiftly, put out the fire that had been
started there. In this way, the wretched town had its enemies and friends
reversed: when it ought to have been defended, it was ruined, and when
it ought to have been ruined, it was saved. 4. Marcus Lucullus, who was
Curio’s successor in Macedonia, waged war on the Bessi and received the
surrender of the whole tribe.®®

49 The land battle was fought at the confluence of the Esopus and Granicus rivers, the sea
battle off the island of Lemnos.

50 The modem Afamia in Syria.

51 The modern Bursa in Turkey. For Mount Olympus, see 1.2.26.

52 The modem Sinop and Samsun in Turkey. The account of Lucullus’s campaigns is
drawn from Livy, Per. 95.

53 73 BC.

54 The former consul of 78 BC, Q. Lutatius Catulus. There is a brief mention of this
incident in Sallust, The War against Catiline, 15, but the Vestal is not named there. Fabia was
Cicero’s sister-in-law; see Asconius, Commentary on the speech 'The Candidate' {Commen-
tarius in orationem In Toga Candidata), 91.

55 M. Terentius Varro Lucullus, consul in 73 BC and proconsul in Macedonia in 72 BC.
He celebrated his triumph in 71 BC. Sections 1-4 of this chapter are drawn from Livy, 97.

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5. At the same time, Metellus, the praetor of Sicily, discovered that
Sicily had suffered terribly during the shameful praetorship of Gaius Verres
and was being torn apart all the more by the infamous depredations and
murders of the pirate king Pyrganio, who had seized the port of Syracuse
after defeating the Roman fleet. By fighting him on land and sea, Metellus
soon wore down this man’s resources and forced him to leave Sicily.^*

6. Meanwhile, Lucullus had crossed the Euphrates and Tigris and came
to battle with Mithridates and Tigranes outside the city of Tigranocerta.^^
He killed a great number of the enemy with his tiny band: for 20,000 men
are said to have been slaughtered in that battle.^® 7. Tigranes threw away his
diadem and tiara to avoid being recognised and fled accompanied by scarcely
150 cavalry. After this, suppliant ambassadors came to Lucullus from almost
all the East. As winter was coming on, he retired through Armenia storming
and capturing Nisibis, a town which was then famous in those parts.^®

1 . In those same days, pirates were found scattered across every sea and
not only attacked shipping, but had also begun to lay waste to islands and
provinces. Their numbers increased enormously as the impunity of their
crimes openly combined with their avidity for plunder. After a long period
when they had wrought devastation by land and sea, Gnaeus Pompey
crushed them with remarkable speed.“

2. At the same time, Metellus threw the island of Crete into turmoil for
two years. After this long war, he finally subdued it and substituted Roman
laws for those of Minos.®'

56 In fact L. Caecilius Metellus was propraetor of Sicily in 70 BC, two years after Lucul-
lus’s command in Macedonia; see Livy, Per. 98.

57 Tigranes II of Armenia (95-55 BC) was Mithridates’ son-in-law. Tigranocerta, which
merely means ‘built by Tigranes’, was Tigranes’s royal capital. The town was later known as
Martyropolis. It should be identified with the modem Silvan in Turkey.

58 Fought in 69 BC. Eutropius, 6.9, gives more details of the battle and puts the size of the
king’s army at 107,500, but records no casualty figures.

59 The modern Nusaybin in Turkey. ‘Then' perhaps alludes to the fact that Nisibis was lost
to the Persians in AD 363. Orosius draws his account from Livy, but suppresses the fact that
Lucullus was unable to purse Mithridates because of a mutiny in his army; see Livy, Per. 98.

60 Pompey’s campaign against the pirates took place in 67 BC and was completed within
forty days.

61 Q. Caecilus Metellus, proconsul in Crete 68-66 BC who obtained the title Creticus
for his actions. Metellus’s command was part of Rome’s war against the pirates. Orosius
suppresses his quarrels with Pompey; see Livy, Per 99. The comments about the exchange of

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3. After these events, Lucullus’s successor, Pompey, surrounded the
king’s®^ camp in Lesser Armenia*^ by Mount Dastracus.®'* The king made a
sally with all his troops by night. He had decided to drive back his pursuer
in battle, while Pompey was pressing on to pursue them as they fled. And
so battle was joined at night. 4 . The moon had risen and was at the Romans’
backs. The king’s men, seeing the length of their enemies’ shadows, thought
that they were close to them and threw all their javelins in vain. After this,
the Romans advanced upon them when they were almost unarmed and
easily defeated them. 5. 40,000 of the royal army were captured or killed,
while 1,000 Romans were wounded and scarcely 40 killed.® 6. The king
fled, escaping in the confusion of battle and helped by the faint light of the
night. After being abandoned by all his friends, philosophers, writers of
chronicles or poems, and his doctors, he led his horse by hand through the
wilderness alone, trembling at every nocturnal sound. He finally came to a
fortress and thence journeyed to Armenia.

7. Pompey, before setting off to pursue the king, founded the city of
Nicopolis for the old, the camp-followers, and the sick in his train who
wished to stay behind.® The city was founded between two rivers, namely
the Euphrates and Araxes, which flow from a single mountain, but from
different springs. 8. Pompey pardoned Tigranes, who begged for mercy, and
then defeated the army and prefects of Horodes, the king of Albania,®three
times in battle. Afterwards, he was happy to receive the letters and gifts
that Horodes sent in order that he restore peace with the Albanians. He
routed Artaces, the king of Iberia,®* in battle and received the surrender of
all Iberia. 9 . Then, after he had set the affairs of Armenia, Colchis, Cappa¬
docia, and Syria in order, he marched from Pontus into Parthia and in 50
days reached the city of Ecbatana, the capital of the Parthian kingdom.®®

laws are probably drawn from Livy, 100.

62 i.e. Mithridates.

63 Armenia to the west of the Euphrates, now in north-east Turkey.

64 Sometimes spelt Dasteira, possibly the modern Kizil Dag.

65 The Battle of Nicopolis, 66 BC where Pompey ambushed Mithridates in the Belgazi
gorge. Orosius’s account is probably drawn from Livy, 101. Eutropius, 6.12.2, agrees that
Mithridates lost 40,000 men, but reduces the Roman casualties to 22.

66 The modem Purkh in Turkey.

67 Albania was located in what is now northern Azerbaijan. Horodes is more commonly
known as Oroeses.

68 The eastern part of modern Georgia.

69 Orosius probably took his account of Pompey’s campaigns from Livy, 101, but see also
Eutropius, 6.13-14. In fact, Pompey never reached Ecbatana.

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5™

1 . While Mithridates was celebrating the rites of Ceres on the Bosphorus,’'
there suddenly occurred such a severe earthquake that it is related to have
caused great damage to both cities and the countryside. 2 . At this time too
Mithridates’ prefect, Castor, who was in command at Phanagorium,” killed
the king’s supporters, occupied the town’s citadel, and sent four of Mithri¬
dates’ sons to the Roman garrison.’^ 3. Mithridates was burning with anger
and this soon blazed forth into crime. Eor it was then that he killed many of
his friends and his own son, Exipodra - he had already committed parricide
by butchering another of his sons, Machares. 4 . His other son, Pharnaces,
was terrified by what had happened to his brothers, won over the army that
had been sent against him, and soon led it against his father. 5. Eor a long
time Mithridates pleaded in vain with his son from the top of the highest
wall, but when he saw that Pharnaces was implacable, he is said to have
cried out on the point of death, ‘Since Pharnaces commands my death, I beg
you, gods of my fathers, if you exist, that someday he too might hear this
command from his own children’He then at once went down to his wives,
concubines, and daughters and gave them all poison. 6. He was the last to
drink it, but, because of the antidotes that he had often used to fortify his
vitals against noxious potions, the poison could not kill him. He wandered
back and forth, hoping in vain that the fatal draught would at last spread
through his veins if he exercised his body. Then he summoned a Gallic
soldier who was fleeing from the breached wall and held out his throat
to be cut. 7. This was how Mithridates ended his life. He is said to have
been the most superstitious of men and has left us a clear statement of his
opinions. He was 72 at his death and had always surrounded himself with
philosophers and the most skilled practitioners of all the arts. 8. ‘Gods of my
fathers, if you exist,’ he said, showing that he, who had long cultivated them
and enquired into this matter, saw that it was not clear that those thought to
be gods were in fact gods. This king had seen much of life and lived to an
old age, but did not come to know the True God, apprehension of Whom
comes only by listening in faith. However, by the light of pure reason he had

70 The historical material in this chapter is drawn from Livy, 102.

71 At his capital Panticapeum, the modern Vospro in the Crimea.

72 The modem Taman in Russia.

73 Implicit in the text is that pagan worship far from bringing aid to its practitioners, brings
positive harm to them.

74 This curse is only found in Orosius.

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seen that these gods were false, deducing this in part from experience and
in part from his own intelligence. 9. ‘If you exist, gods,’ he said, meaning
‘I know that above man is a power more powerful than man himself. As I
have need to pray, I commend my perseverance in searching for it and ask
mercy for my ignorance, I call upon the God Who is, while coming before
one who is not.’ 10. This matter must be considered in both sorrow and fear:
for what penalty and judgment will those deserve who, contrary to what
widespread, manifest truth forbids, follow and worship those gods whose
existence even men of those past times, who were unable to know anything
other than them, were able to doubt?

11. I shall put forward this brief observation: what was the whole of
the East like at this time? For forty years the wretched nations there were
ground down by the depredations of an endless procession of generals; any
city which lay in the middle of these conflicts was inevitably in danger
and the actions it took to placate one side merely inflamed another, so that
what was once a remedy soon itself became an affliction. 12. Meanwhile
panic-stricken delegations from the different provinces went off to succes¬
sive Roman commanders and to Mithridates, who was harsher even than
his reputation, taking their dubious excuses from one side to the other as
the chances of war dictated and so making the danger they were trying to
avert still worse.

13. Now I will set out in a few words what Pompey, and Pompey was
one of the most moderate of the Romans, achieved throughout great areas
of the east after the Mithridatic War had come to an end.’®

1. 689 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Marcus
Tullius Cicero and Gains Antonins,’® Pompey, on receiving news that Mithri¬
dates had been killed, invaded Syria Coele” and Phoenicia. He first subdued
the Ituraeans and Arabs, and captured their city which they call Petra.’* 2.
From there, he despatched Gabinius with an army to Jerusalem against the

75 Orosius’s favourable attitude towards Pompey is probably influenced by Livy whose
support for Pompey was notorious. See Tacitus, Annals, 4.34.

76 Orosius has contradicted himself. At 6.1.29 he dates Mithridates’ suicide to 691 At/C/63
BC. which is, in fact, the correct date of Cicero and Antonius’s consulate.

77 ‘Hollow Syria’, the name given to the valley lying between the Lebanon and anti-
Lebanon mountains in the modern state of Lebanon.

78 In present-day Jordan.

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Jews. They were led by Aristobulus who had expelled his brother, Hyrcanus,
and become the first man to rise to the throne from the priesthood. Pompey
swiftly followed after Gabinius, and while he was received in the town by
its senate, he was driven from the walls of the temple by the people, and
decided to storm it. 3 . Though he threw legion after legion by day and night
into the fray without ceasing, it took him almost three months to capture it,
fortified as it was not merely by its location, but also by a great wall and
enormous ditch. 13,000 Jews are said to have been slaughtered there, the
rest submitted to Rome.’® 4 . Pompey commanded that the walls of the city
be destroyed and levelled to the ground and, after executing some of the
Jews’ leaders, restored Hyrcanus to the priesthood and took Aristobulus as
a captive back to Rome.*® Pompey himself gave an account of this war that
he had waged in the east against 22 kings at a public meeting.

5. Meanwhile, Catiline’s conspiracy against his country was devised and
then betrayed in the City,®' but it was put down in a civil war in Etruria. The
accomplices of the conspiracy were executed at Rome. 6 . It is enough for
us to have sketched its history briefly as everyone knows about these things
which were done by Cicero and described by Sallust.®’

7 . A rebellion in Paelignia engineered by the Marcelli, father and son,
was betrayed by Lucius Vettius.®® It was, as it were, ripped up by the roots
after Catiline’s conspiracy had been uncovered, being suppressed by Bibulus
in Paelignia and by Cicero in Bruttium.

1 . 693 years after the foundation of the City, in the consulate of Gaius
Caesar and Lucius Bibulus,®"* the three provinces of Transalpine Gaul, Cisal¬
pine Gaul, and Illyricum along with seven legions were allotted to Caesar
for a period of five years by the Vatinian Law.®® Afterwards the senate

79 Eutropius, 6.14, gives the figure as 12,000.

80 Orosius’s information is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 1950 (= incorrectly, 65
BC).

81 63 BC, in fact Pompey returned to Rome after the Catilinarian conspiracy.

82 A reference to Sallust’s The War against Catiline. Both Cicero and Sallust were both
important authors in the education curriculum of Orosius’s day.

83 Orosius is our only source for this rebellion.

84 Orosius’s chronology is two years out, Caesai* and Bibulus were consuls in 695 Af/C/59
BC.

85 So named as it was proposed by one of Caesar’s supporters, the tribune P. Vatinius.

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added ‘long-haired’ Gaul to his command.**’ 2. Suetonius Tranquillus has
expounded these events at length and I have followed him, making appro¬
priate excerpts from his account.*^

3. A certain Orgetorix, a leading light among the Helvetii, had inflamed
the spirits of his people to rise up in arms with hopes of attacking all of
Gaul.** The Helvetii were the bravest of the Gallic tribes, above all because
they were almost always at war with the Germans from whom they were
separated only by the river Rhine. 4 . The other nobles seized Orgetorix and
put him to death, but they were unable to restrain their people once they
had been roused by an opportunity for plundering. After devising their plot
and deciding on a day to act, they burnt their homes and villages so that
there could be no question of a wish of going back, and so set out. 5. Caesar
met them at the river Rhone, defeated them twice in a major and close-run
campaign, and, after defeating them, forced them to surrender. When this
horde, which comprised all the men and women of the Helvetii, Tulingi,
Latobogii, Rauraci, and Boii, first set out, they numbered 157,000. Out of
these 47,000 fell in battle and the remainder were sent back to their own
lands.*’

6. After this, Caesar defeated King Ariovistus in the land of the
Sequani.’® He was stirring up and gathering to his side an enormous number
of Germans with whom he boasted that he had recently subjugated all the
peoples of Gaul because Caesar’s army had long declined battle through
fear of his Germans’ numbers and their courage. 7. Ariovistus at once stole a
small boat and, crossing the Rhine, fled into Germany, but his two wives and
two daughters were captured.’* Ariovistus’s army had been composed of the

86 The modern France, named ‘longed-haired’, comata, after the native fashion of wearing
hair long there.

87 An extraordinary statement as in fact Orosius appears to draw exclusively on Caesar’s
Gallic War for his account of the Gallic Wars. Suetonius {Caesar, 25) provides only a brief
resume of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul.

88 The account of the Helvetian War that follows is drawn, in a highly abbreviated form
from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.2-29.

89 This list is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.29. Some names have become slightly
corrupted: Orosius has Latobogii for Latovici and Rauraci for Raurici. Orosius’s total of
157,000 for those migrating is much lower than that given by Caesar (368,000). This is likely
to be the result of a corrupt manuscript rather than Orosius deliberately changing his source
material.

90 The Battle of Alascia, fought in the autumn of 57 BC. The account of the wai‘ is again
drawn, in a highly abbreviated fashion, from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.31—53.

91 According to Caesar, Gallic War, 1.53, both Ariovistus’s wives were killed, was one of
his daughters, the other being captured.

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Arudes, Marcomanes, Triboci, Vangiones, Nemetes, Eduses, and Sueves.^^
8. The battle had been especially hard because of the phalanx®^ used by the
Germans. They formed this in advance when they gathered into one column
and linked their shields together over their heads in order to he protected on
all sides as they attacked the Romans’ lines. 9 . However, some of the Roman
troops known for their daring and agility, leapt on top of their testudo,^'^
and pulled the shields away one by one, like tearing off scales. They then
stabbed down from above on the exposed shoulders of those whom they
had surprised and deprived of their defence. The enemy were terrified by
this new threat of death and broke their threatening formation. 10 . They
were then put to flight and slaughtered without mercy over a distance of 50
miles.It is impossible to guess at the number of Germans who fought or
were killed in this battle.

11 . After this, the Belgae, who occupy one third of the Gauls, rose up
against Caesar. 12 . Their forces were as follows:®’ the Bellovagui who
appeared to be the largest in number and most courageous, had 60,000
picked men under arms; the Suessones had 50,000, drawn from their twelve
towns; 13 . the Nervii similarly had 50,000 men - it was said that they were
so ferocious that up to that time they had never allowed merchants to bring
them wine or any other goods through which imported pleasures could
weaken their courage;®* 14 . the Atrebates and Ambiani had 10,000 men;®®
the Morini, 25,000; the Menapii, 9,000;'°“ the Caleti, 10,000; the Velocasses
and Veromandi, another 10,000; the Atuatuci, 18,000;'°' the Condurses,
Eborones, Caerosi, and Caemani, who are collectively referred to as the
Germans, 40,000. 15 . So in total they are said to have had 282,000 picked

92 This list is identical to that found in Caesar, Gallic War, 1.51, Orosius’s ‘Eduses’ are a
corruption of Caesar’s Sedusii.

93 A striking term to use of barbarians. Orosius has taken it from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.52.

94 Or ‘tortoise’. This terminology, normally reserved for the Roman army, and the rest of
the incident have been taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.52.

95 Caesar says the pursuit was over 15 miles. Orosius’s error could be a result of having a
corrupt version of Caesar; see Pain (1937).

96 While what follows is drawn from the second book of Caesar’s Gallic War, Orosius has
chosen to add this piece of information drawn from Gallic War, 1.1, here.

97 Orosius’s list is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 2.4. Some of the tribal names have
become slightly corrupt.

98 Taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 2.15.

99 Orosius has misread his text and failed to notice that Caesar says that the Atrebates had
15,000 men of their own and the Ambiani a further 10,000.

100 Caesai' has 7,000.

101 Caesar has 17,000.

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men under arms. 16. Caesar’s army was thrown into confusion and put to
flight with very heavy losses when these men suddenly burst out of the
woods. Finally, urged on by its commander, the army stood firm, attacked
those who had defeated them, and slaughtered them almost to a man.'®^

1. After performing these great deeds in Gaul, Caesar decided to go to Italy
and despatched Galba'“ with the 12'*' legion to the lands of the Veragri and
Seduni.*“ 2. Galba stopped to winter in the village belonging to the Veragri
called Octodurus,*“ leaving the half of the town, which was separated from
him by a stream, to its inhabitants. One day, he saw that these had left by
night and were encamped on a neighbouring hill. 3. They had done this
because they had contempt for his small force of scarcely half a legion
and believed that there was booty that would fall into their hands with no
effort whatsoever. They also had summoned their neighbours to join in the
slaughter and plunder.

4. While Galba was surrounded by this pressing danger, afraid, and
unclear how to take a clear decision about the various plans put to him,
the Gauls suddenly swept down from the hill, poured round his unfinished
camp, surrounding it and raining javelins and rocks on the troops scattered
along on the ramparts. 5. When they were already breaking into the camp,
the entire Roman force, on the advice of the chief centurion Pacuvius*“
and the tribune Volusenus, sallied forth from its gates. Their sudden attack
caught the enemy off-guard, and they first threw them into confusion and
then routed them with pitiable carnage - more than 30,000 barbarians are
said to have been slaughtered.*®^

6. And so Caesar was forced back to fight a new and bigger war after
he had thought that all the Gallic tribes had been pacified. 7. For while the
young Publius Crassus was wintering by the Ocean with the Z'* legion in the

102 The Battle of the Sambre, fought in 57 BC. Orosius’s account is a highly abbreviated
version of Caesar, Gallic War, 2.19-28.

103 Ser. Sulpicius Galba, later one of Caesar’s assassins.

104 Caesar, Gallic War, 3.1 adds the Nantuates to these two tribes.

105 The modem Martigny in Switzerland. Orosius does not note that Galba divided his
legion when going into winter quarters; see Caesar, Gallic War, 3.1.

106 This name has become very corrupt - Caesar, Gallic War, 3.5, calls the centurion P.
Sextius Baculus.

107 The figure is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 3.6.

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lands of the Andicavi'°^ the Veneti and all their neighbours suddenly formed
an armed conspiracy, imprisoned some Roman envoys, and told the Romans
that they would release them only if they received their own hostages back.
8. They gathered as allies for their war the Osismi, Lexovi, Namnetes,
Ambivariti, Morini, Diablintes, and Menapii, and also summoned help from
Britain.'®

9. Caesar was told by Crassus about this rebellion of tribes who had
previously surrendered. Although he knew how great the difficulty of
engaging in war would be, he did not think such an important task should
be shirked lest this example should offer a stimulus for other tribes to dare to
act in the same way. 10. Therefore after he had set out to attack his enemies
by land but in vain - because the enemy were protected by tidal estuaries
and inaccessible bays which lay safe along the winding coast - he ordered
that warships be built on the river Loire. 11. Soon, when the enemy saw
them brought down the river to the Ocean, they immediately fitted out 220
vessels of their own and, after arming them with every kind of weaponry,
put out from their port to face him.

12. As Brutus"® looked round, he saw that the battle between the two
fleets was far from equal, as the barbarians’ ships were built of solid timbers
with stout hulls which beat back the blows of his ships’ rams as if they were
striking rocks. 13. His first line of defence was to lash sharp scythes loosely
onto long poles and then tie them onto ropes. Using these weapons, they
could, when necessary, catch and cut their enemies’ rigging at a distance,
by hauling in the poles and pulling back the blade with the rope. 14. These
preparations were quickly made and Brutus ordered his men to cut the tackle
on the enemy’s yard-arms. In this way as their yards fell, he immediately
rendered most of the enemy’s ships immobile, as if they had already been
captured. 15. The others, terrified by the danger they were in, raised their
sails and tried to flee to wherever the wind took them, but the wind soon
failed, leaving them as a laughing-stock for the Romans.'" 16. And so, after
all their ships had been burned and those who resisted had been killed, all

108 Caesai; Gallic War, 3.7, calls the tribe the Andes. This phrase is drawn virtually
verbatim from Caesar, Gallic War, 3.7.2.

109 This list is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 3.9. Some of the names have suffered minor
corruption, e.g. Namnetus for Nemetes, Lexovi for Lixovii.

110 D. Junius Bmtus, the prefect of Caesar’s fleet in 56 BC and later to be one of his
assassins.

111 The description of Brutus’s ploy and its effect is taken from Caesar, Gallic War,
3.14-15.

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the remaining Gauls gave themselves up.

17. However, Caesar, mainly because of the insult to his ambassadors,
and also in order, by way of example, to sear with a terrible brand a race
that was eager to embrace any kind of plot, had all their leaders tortured to
death"^ and the rest sold into slavery.

18. At the same time, Titurius Sabinus made a sally against, and wiped
out with incredible slaughter, the Aulerci, Eburovices, and Lixovii, who had
killed their leaders because these had not wished to renew the war."^

19. When Publius Crassus reached Aquitania, he was welcomed with a
war.""^ For the Sotiates attacked the Romans with great numbers of cavalry
and strong groups of infantry, causing them serious problems for a long
period of time. 20. On being defeated and driven into the Sotiates’ town
where they were put under siege, they saw that it would be taken by storm,
and so handed over their weapons and surrendered. 21. The Aquitanians
were stirred up by this disaster and gathered an army from all sides, even
summoning help from Hither Spain. They chose as their overall commanders
men who had served with Sertorius.'*'’ 22. Crassus overwhelmed and oblit¬
erated them in their own camp while they were plotting to besiege him.
38,000 out of the Aquitanians and Cantabrians, 50,000 of whom had come
to their aid, are said to have been killed.

23. Caesar attacked and slaughtered to a man the Germans who had
crossed the Rhine with huge forces and were preparing to bring all of Gaul
under their control. They say their numbers reached 440,000."*

112 Orosius’s amplification of the verb necare (to murder) used by Caesar, Gallic War,
3.16.

113 These tribes lived on the Cotentin peninsula. The incident is taken from Caesar, Gallic
War, 3.17. Orosius however has missed out the main target of Sabinus’s raid, the Venelli, and
gives only the list of their allies.

114 Crassus’s adventures are drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 3.19-21.

115 The modern Sos.

116 Hither Spain was the province of Spain which lay closest to Gaul. This information,
and that about the involvement of Sertorians in the Aquitanian revolt, is drawn from Caesar,
Gallic War, 3.23.

117 Crassus’s campaigns are taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 3.20-21. Orosius has omitted
his further actions in the region. See Caesar, Gallic War, 3.22—27.

118 The Usipetes and Tenecteri. Orosius’s note is a highly abbreviated version of Caesar,
Gallic War, 4.1-16. The extent of the massacre has been overstated by Orosius. Caesar, Gallic
War, 4.15, gives the number of Germans as 430,000 and makes it clear that not all of them
were killed.

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1. Caesar then built a bridge and crossed into Germany."^ He struck terror
into the Sugambri and also, to raise the siege of the Ubii, into the Sueves,
Germany’s largest and fiercest tribe whom many have said are composed of
100 lands and peoples,*^® and, indeed, into all of Germany by his coming.
Soon he retired back into Gaul and tore down his bridge.

2. He then advanced into the lands of the Morini from where the shortest
and swiftest crossing to Britain can be made.'^' He fitted out around 80
transport and fast ships and made the passage to Britain.Here, he was
first worn down by fierce fighting and then caught in bad weather, losing the
greater part of his fieet, along with a good number of his troops and almost
all his cavalry.

3. On returning to Gaul, he sent his troops into winter quarters and
ordered 600 ships of these two kinds to be built. 4. He crossed over to
Britain again with these at the beginning of spring.'^'* As he was marching
on the enemy with his army, his ships were caught in a storm while riding
at anchor. They ran into one another or broke up as they ran aground on the
sand. In all, 40 were completely lost and the rest were repaired only with
great difficulty.'^* 5. Caesar’s cavalry was defeated by the Britons in its first
engagement where the tribune Labienus lost his life.'^* In a second battle,
the cavalry, after putting themselves into great danger, defeated and routed
the Britons.

6. Caesar then advanced to the river Thames which they say is fordable
only at one point. A huge force of the enemy under the leadership of

119 The information of Caesar’s incursion into Germany is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War
4.16-19.

120 Taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 1.37.

121 See 1.2.76.

122 The figure is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 4.22. Orosius reduces Caesar’s account
of his first incursion into Britain (Gallic War, 4.21-36) to a mere note.

123 i.e. transports and warships. This comment stems from a mis-reading of Caesar, Gallic
War, 5.1, where Caesar describes in detail a single type of new warship with two distinct
capabilities. Orosius has taken this as a description of two separate sorts of ship, hence the
confusion in his text here. The figure of 600 ships is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.2.

124 54 BC; that Caesar sailed in spring is an embellishment in Orosius’s text not found in
Caesar.

125 The storm and the losses it caused are drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.10-11.

126 Orosius, perhaps because his manuscript was conupt, has confused Labienus with Q.
Laberius Durus; see Caesar, Gallic War, 5.15.

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Cassovellaunus'^’ had encamped on the far bank and fortified the riverbank
and almost all the ford beneath the water with sharp stakes. 7. After the
Romans detected and avoided these obstacles, the barbarians were unable to
bear the onslaught of the legions and hid themselves in the woods whence
they frequently sallied forth causing severe losses to the Romans.

8. Meanwhile, the well-defended town of the Trinovantes and their
leader, Androgius,'^* surrendered to Caesar, giving him 40 hostages. 9. Many
other cities followed their example and made treaties with the Romans.
With these acting as his guides, Caesar, after a herce battle, finally captured
Cassovellaunus’s town'^^ which lay between two marshes, defended above
all by its cover of trees, and filled with every kind of provision.'^®

1. Caesar immediately returned from the Britains'^' to Gaul. After he had
sent his troops into winter quarters, he was suddenly surrounded by the
storms of war and accosted on all sides. For Ambiorix conspired with the
Eburonates and Atuatuci, and, inspired by a plan devised by the Treveri,
surrounded and killed Caesar’s lieutenants Cotta and Sabinus in an ambush
near Eburonae with the loss of an entire legion.

2. Elated by his victory, Ambiorix summoned the Atuatuci, the Nervii,
and many others to arms and marched on Caesar’s lieutenant, Cicero, who
was also in charge of a legion in winter quarters.3. It is possible to deduce

127 More properly Casivellaunus; see Caesar, Gallic War, 5.18.

128 The town is probably Colchester. Androgius is more properly Mandubracius; see
Caesai', Gallic War, 5.20.

129 Probably the oppidum of Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire.

130 Orosius appears to have misunderstood Caesar’s comments on Cassivellaunus’s strong¬
hold where he states, Gallic War, 5.21: ‘For the Britons call impassable woodland they have
fortified with a rampart and a ditch, a town’. Caesar’s description of the oppidum's capture does
not indicate particularly stiff resistance. The end of the campaign, which included an attempt
to stir up resistance in Kent by Casivellaunus (see Gallic War, 5.22-23), has been suppressed
by Orosius.

131 Orosius is anachronistically thinking of the Britain of his day - a diocese comprising
several provinces.

132 The ambush took place near Tongres. The demise of Cotta and Sabinus is drawn from
Caesar, Gallic War, 5.26-37, though there is no mention of the Treveri being involved here.
Orosius has either misread Caesar or used a corrupt manuscript as he has created a town
‘Eburonae’ out of a tribe, the Eburones.

133 Q. Tullius Cicero, the brother of the orator Cicero. He was encamped among the
Nervii. The account of his troubles is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.38-52.

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the size of the enemy from the following facts. Their Roman prisoners had
taught them that they ought to surround the camp’s rampart, if they wanted
to besiege it. They had no farm tools, yet by cutting into the earth with their
swords and carrying it away in their cloaks, in less than three hours they
constructed a rampart 10 feet high and a ditch 15 feet deep, 15 miles in
circumference. Besides this, they built 120 towers of astounding height.'^'*
4. After the enemy were exhausted by fighting in their assault formations
for seven days and nights, a strong wind suddenly arose. They then used
their slings to throw red-hot tiles into the camp,'^^ along with javelins that
they set alight in their fires and were soon blazing with flames. 5. The wind,
rushing over the reed roofs, quickly fanned these scattered fires. But even
so the Romans did not yield, although they were overwhelmed on all sides
by wounds, toil, lack of sleep, hunger, and Are.

6. Einally, Caesar was told that one legion had been lost and another
was on the point of destruction. 7. On his arrival with two legions, the
enemy raised their siege, gathered all their forces, and attacked him. Caesar
deliberately hid himself in a very small camp and sent his cavalry forward,
instructing them to pretend to flee in order to tempt the enemy, who would
then despise them, to cross the valley that lay between the two sides and
which he thought was a position full of danger. 8. When they arrived, Caesar
ordered the gates to be barricaded. The Gauls, when they saw this, assuming
that they had already won the battle, abandoned their attack in order to build
a rampart outside the fort. Caesar then unleashed his army, which he had
held in readiness, from all the gates of the fort and put the Gauls to flight
with great slaughter. 9. They were said to have numbered 60,000 out of
whom a few survived by fleeing into impassable marshland.'^'’

10. After the leader of the Treveri, Indutiomarus, who had a large force
of armed men, on being told that he had the support of all of Gaul, decided
to destroy the camp and legion which Labienus commanded - something
he thought could easily be done - and then to join up with the Eburones and

134 These details ai‘e taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.42. The number of towers is only
found in Orosius, and Caesar does not make use of the fortifications to point to the size of his
opponents’ army.

135 The Gauls’ use of the wind is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.43. Caesar makes no
mention of the Gauls growing weary. Orosius’s use of cuneus, ‘assault formation’ may well be
an anachronism as irregular cavalry units in the late Roman army were often given this title; see
Roman Inscriptions of Britain, 1594. Orosius’s rather improbable picture of tiles being thrown
from slings derives from an over-hasty reading of Caesar, Gallic War, 5.43, where we are told
that the Gauls fired red-hot bullets made of clay into the Romans’ camp.

136 The figure is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.49.

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Nervii and march off to crush Caesar. 11. Labienus used what devices he
had at hand to pretend that he was afraid, and in this way crushed Indutio-
marus in a sudden sally after the Gaul failed to take sufficient care while he
and his troops were wandering across the front of Romans’ fortifications,
taunting them.

12. Labienus’s victory put an end to the Gauls’ remaining attempts at
rebellion, and Caesar passed the remainder of the winter a little more quietly.

13. Nevertheless, he knew that the worst part of the war was still to come,
especially since he had lost the greater part of his army and his other troops
had been badly wounded which meant he felt that he was not able to sustain,
not to mention be able to contain, the Gauls’ attacks. He therefore asked the
proconsul Pompey to raise some legions and send them in his support. And
so three legions arrived at his camp before the end of the winter.'^*

14. Caesar therefore got ready to attack and crush his enemies at the
beginning of spring before they could gather their forces together and while
they were still afraid and scattered in their own lands. He first ravaged the
lands of the Nervii, allowing his men to plunder the vast quantities of booty
to be found there. 15. He then formed his army up into three columns
and attacked the Menapii who seemed to be the best protected of the tribes
because of the great marshes and impenetrable forests in their lands. After
horrendous slaughter on all sides, he accepted the surrender of those who
had survived when they came to sue for peace.*'*®

16. In the battle that followed, Labienus cunningly lured all the troops of
the Treveri into a fight, killed them before they could join with the Germans
who were coming to meet them, and straight after this captured their city.*'**
17. Caesar who wished to avenge the deaths of his lieutenants, Sabinus and
Cotta, learnt that Ambiorix and the Eburones, who had destroyed his legion.

137 The attack on Labienus that took place at the end of 54 BC is drawn from Caesar,
Gallic War, 5.55-58.

138 This material is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 6.1, where there is no mention of
Caesai'’s losses or his feeling embattled. Pompey is Pompey the Great, Caesar’s fellow triumvir.

139 Caesar, Gallic War, 6.3, merely mentions a Targe amount’ of booty in the form of
cattle and prisoners.

140 This account is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 6.5-6. Caesar speaks of taking much
booty and of burning buildings and villages, but there is no mention of the ‘great slaughter’
found in Orosius. Similarly, in the Gallic War there is no hint that the envoys who make peace
with Caesar are representatives of a tiny surviving remnant of the tribe as Orosius implies here.

141 This account is taken from Caesar, Gallic War, 5.7-8. It is possible that Orosius has
failed to understand Caesar here and interpreted civitas as meaning city when ‘tribe’ was
intended.

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had fled to the Ardennes forest 18. which is the largest in Gaul and runs
from the Rhine and the lands of the Treveri as far as those of the Nervii — a
distance of more than 50 milesJ"'^ 19. Calculating that it would be a terrible
danger to his own men if they were divided up across this broad, difficult,
and unknown woodland to search for an enemy who knew the lie of the land
perfectly, he sent heralds across all of Gaul inviting anyone to seek out and
seize the booty hidden in the Ardennes forest as he saw fit. 20. By doing
this, as the Gauls fought one another, he avenged the great wrong done to
Rome without putting a single Roman in danger. 21. And so applying this,
the safest style of conquering his enemy, he returned safely to Italy.

1. When Caesar returned to Italy, Gaul once again plotted to rise up in
arms and many tribes gathered together. Their leader was Vercingetorix, on
whose advice all the Gauls at once burnt their own towns.2. The first to
be burnt by its own people was Biturigo.*'*^ They then launched an attack
on Caesar, who, by using forced marches, had secretly rushed back through
Narbonensis to his army.

3. Caesar had already laid siege to a town called Caenapum.''**’ After
it had been invested for a long time and the Romans had suffered many
set-backs, it was finally captured and destroyed by using siege towers on a
rainy day when the ropes of the enemies’ war engines and their bow strings
were slack. 4. There are said to have been 40,000 men in the town, scarcely
80 of whom escaped by flight and reached the nearest Gallic camp.*'*^

142 A very close paraphrase of Caesar, Gallic War, 6.29.4.

143 At the end of 53 BC. Orosius’s account is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 6.34, where
the invitation is to plunder the Eburones rather than the Ardennes forest. This is compres¬
sion on Orosius’s part, as Caesar previously noted in the same chapter that the Eburones had
scattered into the Ardennes. Orosius’s point here is that man’s natural greed will overcome
social solidarity. To underline this, he suppresses Caesar’s final campaign in Gaul (Caesar,
Gallic War, 6.37—44, especially ch. 43) this year to give the false impression that his attempt
to pit Gaul against Gaul had relieved him of any further need to fight.

144 While Vercingetorix soon became the leader of the uprising, it had in fact started
elsewhere under the different leaders; see Caesar Gallic War, 7.1—4. Perhaps this is excusable
compression on Orosius’s part.

145 Orosius has misread Caesar, Gallic War, 7.15, which reads ‘more than 20 towns of the
Bituriges were burnt in a single day’.

146 Normally Cenabum, the modern Orleans.

147 Orosius is highly confused here. According to Caesar, Gallic War, 7.3,11, Caenapum
was the site of a massacre of Roman citizens, after which it was then recaptured. However,

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5. Then the Arverni and all their neighbours - they even persuaded the
Aedui to join them'"^* - fought against Caesar in a long series of battles. 6.
When they were wearied of the fighting, they withdrew to a strongpoint,
which Caesar’s troops, eager for booty, were determined to storm, while
Caesar in vain pointed out the danger of the position.Because of this,
Caesar was hard pressed by the enemy who sallied out from above him, lost
a great part of his army, and withdrew in defeat.

7. While this was going on at Alesia,™ Vercingetorix, whom they had
all chosen as their king by common consent, urged everyone in all of Gaul
who could bear arms to be at hand to fight in this war. This one war, he
declared, would either bring everlasting freedom, perpetual slavery, or the
death of them all. 8. In this way, apart from the countless horde that he had
already amassed, he managed to collect around 8,000 cavalry and 250,000
infantry.'®^ 9. After this, the Romans and Gauls occupied two hills facing
one another. They frequently fought each other in various engagements with
varied outcomes, until the Romans were finally triumphant, mainly because
of the courage of their German cavalry. These were long-standing allies
whom they had now recruited as auxiliary troops.

10. On another day, Vercingetorix summoned all those who had escaped
in the battle and declared that it was in good faith that he had instigated them
to break the treaty to defend their freedom, and that he was ready in his heart
either for all the Gauls to offer themselves up to the Romans to die or for
them to offer himself up on behalf of all of them. 11. The Gauls then took,
as if on the king’s advice, the choice which they had for sometime concealed
through shame and immediately, while asking for pardon for themselves,
delivered him up alone as the instigator of this great crime.

Orosius’s account of the town’s capture is drawn from the later siege of Avaricum (Caesar,
Gallic War, 7.27, where the heavy rain is portrayed as a hindrance, not a help for the Romans).
Orosius’s casualty figures, drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 7.28, also refer to Avaricum.

148 Prior to this, the Aedui had been Caesar’s staunchest Gallic allies.

149 Gergovia, near the modern Clermont-Ferrand.

150 This incident is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 7.47-53.

151 Drawn verbatim from Caesar, Gallic War, 7.75.1. Alesia is the modern Alise-Sainte-
Reine, some 32 miles north-west of Dijon. Orosius is either guilty of a terrible misunder¬
standing of Caesar here or of over-compression, as his use of this phrase implies that the
previous sections dealt with affairs at Alesia which is not the case.

152 Vercingetorix’s sentiments and the numbers of his levy are drawn from Caesar, Gallic
War, 7.76.

153 The incident with the German cavalry is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 7.80. The
comment on their recruitment is Orosius’s own.

154 Vercingetorix’s surrender is drawn from Caesar, Gallic War, 7.89. Orosius has

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12. The Gauls themselves believed that the Bellovagui were the bravest
of their tribes.'^’ Under the leadership of Correus they renewed the war,
made an alliance with the Ambiani, Aulerci, Caleti, Velocasses, and Atre'
bates,'’® and occupied a position that was surrounded on every side by
impassable marshland. When battle was joined, they butchered a great band
of the Remi who were supporting the Romans.'” 13. They then occupied
a position that they had previously decided was ideal for an ambush. The
Romans, however, had learnt about this and advanced to the place of the
ambush drawn up in battle order. When battle was joined, the Romans
closed off the Gauls as they fled against the very fortifications in which
they had enclosed themselves and slew them to a man. 14. It was here that
Correus, who refused either to flee or surrender, forced the Romans to kill
him as he killed those who were pressing forward to take him alive.'’*

15. Now when Caesar thought that he had pacified all of Gaul and
that the country would not dare to attempt any more uprisings, he sent his
legions into winter quarters, while he himself laid waste with horrendous
slaughter the lands of Ambiorix who had stirred up so many of these wars.'’^

16. Caesar’s lieutenant. Gains Caninius, however, found himself in a
war when he arrived in the lands of the Pictones:'®" a great host of the enemy
surrounded a legion while it was bogged down on the march and placed it in
the greatest danger. 17. Another lieutenant, Fabius, set out for the Pictones’
lands on receiving Caninius’s despatches, and there, since he had learnt
about the lie of the land from his prisoners, he crushed his enemy while they
were off-guard. After indulging in much slaughter, he carried off an even
greater amount of booty.'®' 18. Then, when he had signalled to Caninius that

compressed Caesai'’s account of the fighting at Alesia, but still chosen awkwardly to paraphrase
Caesar’s, postero die, ‘on the following day’ to introduce his account of the collapse of Gallic
resistance. There is no reference to a treaty in Caesar. It must therefore be either an invention
of Orosius or something he found in another source. The former option seems the most likely.
For a modern discussion of the siege, see Campbell (2006) 148-54.

155 Normally the Bellovaci. The sentiment is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.6 (Aulus
Hirtius, a close ally of Caesar, composed the eighth, and final, book of the Gallic War).

156 This list is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.7.

157 The incident with the Remi is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.12. The ‘great band’ is
a deduction from Gallic War, 8.11 where Hirtius says Caesar levied great numbers of cavalry
from the Remi, Lingones, and ‘other tribes’. Nothing is said of the casualties in the actual
fighting and Hirtius implies that this was a skirmish more than a major battle.

158 The battle and death of Correus are drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.17-19.

159 Caesai'’s attack on Ambiorix is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.24-25.

160 The Pictones were centred around the modem Poitiers.

161 Drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.27.5. The comment about ‘even more’ booty is

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he had arrived, Caninius suddenly sallied forth with all his men and flung
himself on the foe. In this way an innumerable number of the Gallic host
were butchered in a great and lengthy battle, being attacked on one side by
Fabius, and on the other by Caninius. 19. Fabius then advanced into the land
of the Carnutes; for he knew that Domnacus, their leader and the one of the
longest-standing instigators of the whole rebellion, had escaped from this
battle and would stir up more great rebellions in Gaul if he could join up
with the Armorican tribes. However, he subdued these with great courage
and rapidity, while they were still frightened by the change in the state of
things.'®

20. Meanwhile, after they saw Caninius and his legions invade their
territory, Draptes together with Lycterius'"^ gathered troops together from
all sides and occupied the town of Uxellodunum.'*'^ 21. This town hangs
from the top of a high mountain citadel with its steep slopes flanked on
two sides by a river of no small size. With a secure water supply from
an abundant spring half-way down the slope and a large supply of corn
safely stored within, it could look down with contempt from afar at the futile
manoeuvres of its enemies. 22. Caninius, doing what only a Roman could
do by foresight, lured both their leaders and most of their army out onto the
plain and defeated them in a great battle. One of them was killed and the
other fled with a few survivors: not one returned to the town.'*"’ But it was
left to Caesar to attack the town itself.

23. When he had been told what had happened, Caesar rushed to the spot
and after investigating every possibility, saw that if he tried to take the town
by force, it would be child’s play and mere entertainment for the enemy to
wipe out his army. He had only one route to success: he had in some way
to cut off the enemy’s water supply. 24. Caesar could not do this, if the
spring that they used for drink continued to flow from half-way down the
hill’s slope. Caesar ordered mantelets'®’ to be moved up close to the spring

Orosius’s own embroidery: Hirtius simply states that Fabius’s men obtained ‘a great amount
of booty after killing many of the enemy’.

162 Canninus’s and Fabius’s campaigns are drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.26-31.

163 Slightly corrupted forms of Drappes and Lucterius; see Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.30.

164 Probably the Puy d’Issolu in the Dordogne.

165 The description of Uxellodunum is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.40—41.

166 A rather confused version of the events described in Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.35-36.
Orosius has collapsed two engagements into a single battle. The comments about the Romans’
superior ability are Orosius’s own gloss.

167 Latin, vinea - the wooden sheds constructed by a besieging army to allow them to
advance under cover. See Vegetius, 4.15.

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and a tower to be built there. Straightaway there was a great sally from the
town. Although the Romans stubbornly pressed on against their opponents
who fought with no danger to themselves, and had many successes, a great
number of them were butchered. 25. Therefore, they constructed a mound
and a 60-foot-high tower whose top was level with the spring so that they
were able to throw their javelins from the same level as the enemy and have
no fear that great rocks would be rolled down on them from above.

26. When the townsfolk saw not only their herds, but also the old and
the young suffering from thirst, they filled barrels with pitch and tallow, set
them alight, rolled them down the hill, and then poured out of the entire
town close behind them.'®* 27. When his siege engines caught fire, Caesar
saw that the battle would be hard and dangerous for his men, he therefore
ordered his cohorts to go round the town swiftly by a secret route and then
suddenly to raise a great cry on all sides. When this happened, the townsfolk
were alarmed and wanting to rush back to defend the town, abandoned their
attack on the tower and efforts to destroy the mound.

28. Meanwhile the Romans who were safely digging tunnels to cut off
the source of the spring beneath the cover of the mound, found the water’s
source in the depths of the earth and weakened it by dividing it into many
channels and turning it back on itself. When they saw their spring run dry,
the townsfolk were seized with uttermost despair and surrendered. 29.
Caesar took the hands from all of them who had lifted a weapon, but left
them their lives so that the punishment of the wicked might be all the clearer
to future generations, 30. for a visible form of punishment has great power
to curb insolence, as the very appearance of the wretched, living victim
before their eyes reminds those who know about the crime, and compels
those who do not, to learn about it.'®®

1. When the Gauls had been ground down and conquered, Caesar returned
safely to Italy with his legions. He had no fear of Gallic uprisings occurring
behind him, knowing that he had left there very few who would dare to rebel
or who were to be feared if they did.

168 The fighting around the siege-tower is drawn from Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.41—43.
Orosius has misunderstood Hirtius’s account where the siege-tower is part of Caesar’s initial
plan, not a response to the fierce resistance he encountered.

169 Caesai'’s ploy, the end of the siege, and the punishment of the Gauls ai‘e drawn from
Hirtius, Gallic War, 8.43^4, the last being a very close paraphrase of Gallic War, 8.44.1. The
sententia which follows is Orosius’s own.

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2.1 now wish to set before the reader’s eyes a bloodless and exhausted
Gaul, her state after these blazing fevers and inner seethings had roasted the
better part of her vitals, how emaciated and how pale she was, how she lay
crushed and undone, how she feared even to conduct necessary business in
case it brought back the same onset of woes again.

3. For the Roman army had fallen on her in a sudden onslaught like
disease that is stronger than even the strongest body and which flares up
all the more strongly the less patiently it is endured. 4. The wretched land
thirsted as she was forced at sword point to pledge herself to everlasting
slavery, and had hostages taken from her besides. She thirsted, as I have
said, for the well-known, sweet taste of liberty, something which refreshes
us all like a drink of cool water, and the more she realised that it was being
taken away from her, the more fervently she desired it. 5. It was this that
produced her frequent attempts to gain what was forbidden to her; she was
seized by an ill-opportune freedom to defend her freedom and there grew up
an unrestrained lust for endless conquest because this seemed to put an end
to the malady that she had unfortunately caught.6. Because of this, the
Roman was more cunning and devious before battle, a more savage foe in
it, and a more heartless victor after it. Hence came every escalation designed
to curb the Gauls’ restiveness and the lack of belief in any remedy for it.'^'

7. And so, if I could ask this nation which we are talking about,'^^ what
she thought about those times when she bore these ills, she would reply, I
think, as follows: ‘That fever has left me so bloodless and cold that even the
events of today, which have afflicted almost all the world, neither warm my
blood or move me. The Romans have left me in such a state that I cannot
rise up even against the Goths.’

8. Nor did even Rome herself escape the disaster that she inflicted. The
power of the commanders and might of the legions which had increased
and been exercised in every comer of the world and coming into conflict
with one another their victories were at her expense, and their defeats at her
peril. For it was civil war that accompanied Caesar’s return from Gaul and
this was heralded by other dire evils, such as the slaughter of Crassus and
his army in Parthia.'^'*

170 A particularly obscure passage. Orosius’s point seems to be that the Gauls’ enthusiasm
to defend themselves had led to a wish to conquer others.

171 Therefore, the Gauls, according to Orosius, were the authors of their own misfortune.

172 i.e. the Gauls.

173 At the time of writing Gaul had been lost to the Roman Empire.

174 Crassus and his army were wiped out by the Parthians at Carrhae in 53 BC, see 6.13.

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1. 697 years after the foundation of the City,'’^ Crassus, the colleague of
Pompey in the consulate, was allotted the command against the Parthians.
He was a man of insatiable greed and when he heard of the riches of the
temple of Jerusalem that Pompey had left untouched, he diverted his course
to Palestine, came to Jerusalem, burst into the temple, and ransacked its
treasures.'’’’ 2. He then marched through Mesopotamia to Parthia, exacting
levies and demanding monies from Rome’s allies all along his route. Soon
after crossing the Euphrates, he encountered Vagenses, the envoy who had
been sent to him by Horodes, the king of the Parthians.'” Vaganses rebuked
him furiously, demanding to know why he had been lured by his greed
across the Euphrates, breaking the treaty made by Lucullus and Pompey,
and said that, because of this, very soon he would be loaded down not with
the gold of Parthia, but with Chinese iron.'’*

3. When he arrived near Carrhae, the Parthians led by their prefects
Surenas'’^ and Silacea'*® suddenly fell upon the Romans and overwhelmed
them with their arrows.'*' Very many senators fell there, including even
a number of former consuls and praetors. Crassus’s son, Crassus, an
outstanding youth, was killed fighting in the battle-line.'*’ In addition to
this, four cohorts along with Crassus’s lieutenant, Vargunteius, were caught
and killed in the middle of the countryside. 4. Surenas took his cavalry from
the battle and pressed on after Crassus. He surrounded and killed him as he
vainly sought a parley, though he would rather have taken him alive. A few
men, given their chance by nightfall, fled to Carrhae.

5. After the catastrophe that the Romans had suffered became known,
many of her eastern provinces would have reneged on their allegiance or
pledges of loyalty to Rome had not Cassius rallied those few who had fled

The notion of Caesar’s Gallic Wars being a harbinger of disasters for Rome is also found to
some degree in Eutropius, 6.18-19.

175 Orosius’s date is two years out; Pompey and Crassus were consuls in 699 At/C/55 BC.

176 Orosius is the only evidence for Crassus’s actions in Jerusalem. It allows him to imply
that Crassus’s subsequent downfall was a product of divine vengeance.

177 Orodes II (57-38 BC).

178 Perhaps an allusion to the belief that some of Crassus’s army were sold as slaves to
China. For a modem version of this fanciful notion, see Dobbs (1957).

179 Orosius has mistaken this title for a personal name.

180 The Parthian satrap of Mesopotamia.

181 The Battle of Carrhae, 9 June 53 BC.

182 A reference to the death of Crassus’s son in Livy, Per. 106, suggests that Livy is the
source for Orosius’s account of Crassus’s campaign.

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and with exceptional presence of mind and moderation secured a restive
Syria. He defeated Antiochus and his huge army in a great battle and drove
out the Parthians who had been despatched by Horodes to Syria and had
already managed to enter Antioch, killing their leader, Osages.

1. Rome’s place in the world was, therefore, always changing, like the
Ocean’s swell which is different every day.'*'* For seven days it rises steadily
and then falls back for the same number of days, being absorbed into itself
with a loss that is part of its nature 2. To put what I have just described in
order, a Roman army perished at the hands of the Cimbri and Tigurini by
the river Rhone, causing a great panic at Rome. But when the threat of
the Cimbri receded, immediately she was overjoyed at her great successes
and forgot her previous failings. 3. The Italian War'*^ and Sulla’s depreda¬
tions were her punishment for this boasting about her recent good fortune.
Yet after this internecine domestic turmoil that ate her away and eviscer¬
ated her down almost to the very marrow of her bones, in an almost equal
space of time she was not only restored to her old state, but even extended
her boundaries. Lucullus took Asia; Pompey, Spain; and Caesar, Gaul; and
the Roman Empire was extended almost to the furthest ends of the earth.
4. Great disaster followed on from this great expansion. A Roman consul
was killed and a Roman army wiped out in Parthia. The seeds of a horren¬
dous civil war between Pompey and Caesar were sown and, while these
events were happening, Rome herself was suddenly seized by a great fire
and reduced to ashes. 5. For in the 700* year after the foundation of the City,
a fire whose origins were unclear took hold of the greater part of the City.
They say that never before had the City been affected or devastated by such
a conflagration. For it has been recorded that 14 districts were burnt down
along with the lugarium district.'*® At this point, the civil war, for which
dissension and rebellion had long paved the way, began.

183 G. Cassius Longinus, Crassus’s quaestor, and later one of Caesar’s assassins. Orosius
has turned the town of Antigoneia, where Cassius defeated the Parthians, into a non-existent
general, Antiochus. The account of Cassius’s campaigns is probably drawn from Livy, 108.

184 The bulk of this chapter is recapitulation to illustrate Orosius’s metaphor.

185 i.e. the Social War.

186 An area of Rome adjacent to the fomm, see Livy, 27.37.13. Orosius mentions this fire
again at 7.2.11 where he gives Livy as his source. This should be Livy, 109. Orosius dates the
fire to 52 BC; however, our only other extant source for it, Julius Obsequens, 65, dates it to 50
BC and notes that it was seen as a prodigy. This is implicit in Orosius’s account.

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1. While returning in triumph from Gaul, Caesar asked that another
consulate be decreed for him in his absence. This was denied him by the
consul Marcellus who was supported by Pompey. The Senate then decreed
that Caesar could not enter the City unless he dismissed his army, and, on
the authority of the consul Marcellus, Pompey was sent to take command
of the legions at Luceria. 2. Caesar went to Ravenna. The tribunes of the
plebs, Mark Antony and Publius Cassius,'®’ who had intervened on Caesar’s
behalf, but whom Marcellus had banned from the senate-house and forum,
came to join him there, accompanied by Curio and Caelius.

3. Caesar crossed the river Rubicon, soon reached Arimium'®® and told
the five cohorts, who were the only troops he had, what they had to do.
It was with these five cohorts, as Livy says,'®® that he set out to fight the
world. He lamented the wrongs done to him and declared that the reason for
the civil war was the need to restore the tribunes to their country. 4. Then
through Antony’s actions he obtained from Lucretius the seven cohorts that
were at Sulmo,'®" and won over to his side the three legions that were under
the command of Domitius at Corfinum.'®' Pompey and the entire Senate
were terrified by Caesar’s growing strength and, as if they had been driven
from Italy, they crossed over to Greece and chose Dyrrachium'®’ as their
headquarters for waging the war.

5. On entering Rome, Caesar broke down the doors of the treasury and
took the money he had been refused. He carried off 4,135 pounds of gold,
and almost 900,000 pounds of silver.'®® 6. He then returned to his legions at
Ariminum and soon after crossed over the Alps to Marseilles. As this town
did not receive him, he left Trebonius there with three legions to storm it, and
marched on into the Spains which were held by the Pompeian commanders
Lucius Afranius, Marcus Petreius, and Marcus Varro and their legions.
There, after many battles, he defeated Petreius and Afranius and let them

187 In fact, the second tribune was Quintus Cassius.

188 The Rubicon marked the boundary between Caesai^’s province and Italy proper; its
location is disputed. Ariminum is the modem Rimini. Orosius’s chronology is awry here as
Ariminum was taken before the crossing of the Rubicon.

189 Livy, 109.

190 The modem Sulmona. These troops defected from their Pompeian commander Lucre¬
tius to Caesar when they were approached by Antony.

191 The modern Corlinio.

192 The modern Durazzo in Albania.

193 Up to this point in the chapter, Orosius’s main source is Livy, 109.

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go after making terms with them.'^'* 7. In Further Spain too, he took two
legions from Marcus Varro. His commanders fared equally well, that is to
say Curio drove Cato from Sicily, Valerius Cotta from Sardinia, and Tubero
was ejected from Africa by Varus. Caesar returned to Marseilles which had
been captured after being besieged. He gave the townsfolk merely life and
liberty and destroyed everything else there.

8. On the other hand, Dolabella,*®® Caesar’s supporter in Illyricum,
was defeated by Octavius, and Libo lost his troops and fled to Antony.
Basillus'®^ and Sallust,'^* each in command of a single legion, Antony, who
likewise had one legion, and Hortensius,'” who came to join them from the
Inner Sea,^“ all marched together on Octavius and Libo, but were defeated
by them. 9 . Antony and his 15 cohorts surrendered to Octavius and these
were all taken to Pompey by Libo. When Curio crossed into Africa from
Sicily with his army. King Juba immediately came out to face him and
butchered him along with all his troops. Octavius tried to storm Salonae and
lost almost all his troops.^®' 10 . Caelius defected from Caesar and joined the
exile Milo; they were both cut down when they tried to seize Capua with a
band of slaves. On Corfu Bibulus was overcome by his shame because the
enemy made a mockery of the defences he had thrown up in the town and
along the sea, and killed himself by refusing to eat or sleep.

11 . Appius Claudius Censorinus, who had been ordered by Pompey to
guard Greece, wished to make trial of the already discredited Pythian oracle.
The prophetess whom he forced to go down into the cave is said to have replied
to him as follows when he asked about the war: ‘This war does not concern
you, Roman. You will take the Hollows of Euboea.’ The Euboean Gulf is
called the Hollows. So Appius departed confused by this perplexing reply.

12 . This questioner reminds us to ask a question of our detractors. They

194 A reference to the Ilerda, the modern Lerida, campaign in Catalonia. Afranius and
Petreius surrendered on 2 August 49 BC.

195 P. Cornelius Dolabella, later consul in 44 BC.

196 Orosius may have created two individuals out of one here. Florus, 2.13.31, speaks of
a lieutenant of Pompey named Octavius Libo. Gaius Antony was the younger brother of Mark
Antony.

197 Mentioned by Florus, 2.13.32, and Lucan, Pharsalia, 4.416, but otherwise unknown.

198 Perhaps Sallust the historian.

199 The son of the great orator, and Cicero’s rival, of the same name.

200 The Adriatic.

201 Sections 6-9 of this chapter ai‘e drawn from Livy, 110.

202 The Bibulus involved was Caesar’s fellow consul and opponent of 59 BC.

203 The ‘Hollows’ was a name for the Gulf of Euboea (see Livy, 31.47.1), but is also the
name of a region of Euboea between Ramnunta and Carystus.

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complain that because of the Christians’ faith their holy rites are forbidden,
their ceremonies ended, and, especially, that now divination from entrails
and prophecy have ceased, it is impossible to avoid future calamities as
they cannot be foreseen. 13 . Why then, as their own authors attest, had
belief in the Pythian oracle vanished long before Caesar’s^“ rule or the birth
of Christ? It vanished because the oracle was despised. And why was it
despised, save that it was wrong, empty, or ambiguous? Whence the poet
wisely warned:

Thus many not succeeding, most upbraid

The madness of the visionary maid

And with loud curses leave the mystic shade

14 . Nor should they think it a small thing that both the god and his seat
have become ignored through contempt and are now part of the past.^®’ This
was the famous Pythian Apollo whom they say after killing the great serpent
Pytho, the author and chief practitioner of all prophecy, became heir to the
snake’s abode, its prophetic powers, and name.^°® He chose, they go on, to
give his oracles there because this is where divination and its creator seem
to have arisen. 15 . Moreover, his name is spewed forth in other parts of
the world from the frothing mouths and wild rants of every wild madman.
A great number of kings have rushed to consult the oracle, as if it were
the living voice of a wise divinity, and very often Romans too have sent it
luxurious gifts.^®*

16 . But if the notorious Pythian Apollo has gradually fallen into
contempt as experience has exposed him, been abandoned, and had an end
put to him, what life can we expect from a dead animal or what truth from
a mad girl? Finally, when at the altars the bloated Tuscan blows his horn^^”
and the innards of a splendid beast are set before him, what lies will the
greedy oracle not tell, if, as they admit, Apollo himself leads men astray
with obscure and false statements.

17 . So, while in the meantime they are unwilling to follow us, let them
bear with equanimity the fact that we forbid with truthful judgment a

204 A reference to Theodosius the Great’s ban on paganism, promulgated in AD 391,
Theoclosian Code, 16.10.10.

205 i.e. Augustus.

206 Virgil, 3.452.

207 Orosius is contrasting the ‘antiquity’ of Apollo with the ‘new times’ of Christianity.

208 ‘Great seipent’ caiiies clear Christian overtones of the devil.

209 Orosius implies that Romans ought to have known better than these kings.

210 Virgil, Georgies, 2A9'i.

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practice that the majority of their ancestors despised after experiencing it.

18 . Meanwhile at Dyrrachium, a large number of Oriental kings came
bringing support for Pompey.^" When Caesar arrived, he besieged Pompey
in vain, for although he dug a ditch 15 miles long, the seas lay open to
Pompey. 19 . Pompey destroyed a strongpoint by the sea guarded by Marcel-
linus^'^ and killed Caesar’s garrison posted there. Caesar set out to take
Torquatus and his single legion by storm. 20 . Pompey, realising his allies’
danger, concentrated his forces here, upon which Caesar abandoned his
siege and immediately marched against him. Torquatus then sallied forth
and attacked his rearguard. 21 . This led to Caesar’s troops panicking at
their sudden danger and they fled, while Caesar vainly tried to rally them.
Pompey, whom Caesar admits was the victor, then recalled his army. 4,000
of Caesar’s troops, 22 centurions, and a good number of Roman knights
were killed in this battle. 22 . After this, Caesar swiftly marched through
Epirus into Thessaly. Pompey followed him with an enormous force and
battle was joined.

23 . The lines of battle on both sides were drawn up as follows: Pompey
ordered his 88 cohorts into three lines. He had 40,000 infantry and 600
cavalry on his left wing, and 500 on his right. There were also many kings,
and a greater number of Roman knights and senators, besides which there
was a large force of light infantry. 24 . Caesar ordered his 80 cohorts into a
similar threefold line; he had fewer than 30,000 men and 1,000 cavalry.^'’
25 . One could not help groaning on seeing the might of Rome gathered on
the fields of Pharsalia to destroy itself, for if harmony had reigned over these
armies, no people or king would have been able to resist them.^'*’

26. In the first exchange, Pompey’s cavalry was put to flight, exposing
his left flank. Then, after long, inconclusive slaughter, Pompey stood on
one side urging his men ‘to spare the citizens’, but not practising what he
preached, while Caesar, on the other, did precisely that, as he urged his
troops on, shouting ‘soldier, strike at the face’.^^’ In the end, all Pompey’s

211 Pompey’s conquest of the east had given him a large number of clients in Asia Minor.

212 P. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus, Caesai^’s quaestor in 48 BC.

213 Caesar, The Civil War, 3.71; 3.73. Caesar is a little less explicit than Orosius merely
remarking that he was ‘forced to revise his previous plans’. His casualty figures are also lower
- he says he lost 960 men along with 32 tribunes and centurions.

214 The Battle of Pharsalus, 9 August 48 BC.

215 These figures are taken from Eutropius, 6.20.

216 A similar sentiment is found in Eutropius, 6.21.

217 See Plutarch, Caesar, 45.2. According to Plutarch, Caesar was playing on the vanity of
Pompey’s troops who would not want facial scars.

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army fled and his camp was ransacked. 27. 15,000 of Pompey’s troops and
33 of his centurions were killed in the battle. This was the end of the battle
at Old Pharsalus.^'*

Pompey fled to the mouth of the river Peneus,^'^ commissioned a
merchantman, and crossed over to Asia. 28. Thence he went to Egypt via
Cyprus and as soon after he had come ashore was killed on the orders of the
young Ptolemy in order to placate the triumphant Caesar.Pompey’s wife
and sons fled, the rest of his fleet was destroyed and everyone in it cruelly
butchered. It was here that Pompey Bithynicus died,^^' while the former
consul Lentulus was killed at Pelusium.^^^

29. After setting the affairs of Thessaly in order, Caesar came to Alexan¬
dria and wept when Pompey’s head and signet ring were brought out for
him to see. When he came to the palace, he was outwitted by the king’s
guardians^^^ who, in order to stop Caesar taking their money and to stir
up their people to hate him, had cunningly stripped the temples to create
the impression that even the royal treasury was empty. 30. Moreover the
royal commander, Achillas, whose hands had already been stained with
Pompey’s blood, was, in the meantime, plotting Caesar’s death too. After he
was ordered to dismiss the army that he commanded which was composed
of 20,000 armed men, he did not merely disregard his orders, but drew his
men up in order of battle.

31. In the battle that followed, the command to burn the royal fleet,
which happened to be beached at the time, was given. The flames reached
part of the city and destroyed 400,000 books that were housed in a building
that happened to be close by, a singular monument to the study and labours
of our ancestors who had gathered together this great collection of famous
works of genius. 32. And so although there are, as I have seen myself,
bookshelves in the temples which they say were plundered and emptied by
our own people^^'* in our own time - which is indeed true^^^ - it would be

218 The name of the acropolis of Pharsalus. Sections 10-27 of this chapter are drawn from
Livy, 111, though the moralising excursus on oracles is no doubt Orosius’s own.

219 The modern river Pineios, the main river of Thessaly.

220 Ptolemy XIII Dionysius, aged 13.

221 Orosius just seems to be wrong here. A. Pompeius Bithynicus was killed by Sextus
Pompey on Sicily in 42 BC, Cicero, Letters to his Friends {Ad Familiares), 6.16 and 6.17;
Livy, Per. 123.

222 L. Cornelius Lentulus Crus, consul in 49 BC.

223 The eunuch Pothinus, the orator Theodotus of Chios, and the general Achillas.

224 i.e. Christians.

225 Some commentators, e.g. Sanchez Salor (1982a) 135 n. 267, believe that this phrase is

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more reasonable to believe that they sought out other books which imitated
the studies of old rather than that there had been some other library apart
from this one of 400,000 books and which had escaped destruction^^^

33 . After this, Caesar took control of the island where the Pharos is
found7^^ Achillas advanced on him here with Gabinius’s troops7^* A great
battle was fought: an enormous number of Caesar’s troops fell and all of
Pompey’s killers were killed here. 34 . Hard pressed by the force of his
enemy’s advance, Caesar boarded a launch that soon was weighed under
and sunk by the weight of those following him. Caesar swam 200 yards to
a ship, holding his papers aloft in one hand. Soon afterwards, he was forced
to hght at sea and had the great fortune to sink or capture the ships of the
royal fleet.^^^

1 . At the Alexandrians’ request, Caesar restored their king to them, warning
him that he ought to seek to experience Rome’s friendship rather than her
arms. However, when he was freed, he immediately declared war and was
straightaway annihilated along with all his army. 20,000 are reported to have

an interpolation into the text. Certainly, the admission is not consonant with Orosius’s normal
aggressive defence of all things Christian or with what follows in his account.

226 Canfora (1989) 70, 93, reads the Latin proximis forte aedibus condita as ‘stored by
chance’ in the neighbouring buildings and therefore thinks that the books were in a warehouse
destined for export (or potentially which had just been imported — Galen, Commentary on the
Hippocratic book 'Concerning the nature of man’ (Commentariutn in Hippocratis Ubrum De
Natura Hominis), 1.44, notes that books were not immediately taken to the library but stored in
warehouses rather than in a library), a view with which Barnes (2005) 72 is cautiously inclined
to agree. Plutarch, Caesar, 25, on the other hand, is explicit that the library was destroyed, a
statement corroborated by Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 8.17.3. Orosius’s figure of 400,000 is
likely to be corrupt. Seneca, On an Untroubled Mind {De Tranquilitate Animi), 9.4-5, speaks
of Livy, Orosius’s source, recording that 40,000 books were burnt at Alexandria and this is
probably the true number. Orosius is being disingenuous in his account. There was another
great library in Alexandria, the Pergamene, housed at the Serapeum. This collection of 200,000
volumes was created by the kings of Pergamum and later given by Antony to Cleopatra. It was
destroyed by the Christian patriarch of Alexandria, Theophilus, with the support of Theodosius
the Great. It is this act of vandalism by Christians, and, by proxy, Spanish Christians, that
Orosius is trying to talk away.

227 The lighthouse which was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The island is now
known as El Sayyala.

228 These were the Roman troops Aulus Gabinius had left in Egypt in 57 BC after restoring
Ptolemy XI Auletes to his throne.

229 Sections 10-34 of this chapter are drawn from Livy, 112.

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been killed in this battle. 12,000 are said to have surrendered along with 70
warships. 500 of the victor’s men are said to have fallen.2. The young
king boarded a launch in order to escape, hut he was pushed under water by
the numbers jumping onto it and killed. His body when it was washed up
onto the shore was recognised by its golden breastplate. Caesar sent this on
ahead of him to Alexandria and so forced all the Alexandrians to surrender
to him in despair. He then gave the kingdom of Egypt to Cleopatra.^^' 3.
After this, he crossed through Syria and defeated Pharnaces in Pontus.^^^
He then returned to Rome, was made dictator and consul, and crossing
over to Africa, fought Juha and Scipio at Thapsus,^^^ killing a great host
of men. Both Juha and Scipio’s camps were ransacked and 60 elephants
were captured. 4 . Cato committed suicide at Utica,^^"^ while Juba paid an
assassin to cut his throat, and Petreius used that self-same sword to run
himself through.Scipio cut his throat on the ship on which he had heen
trying to flee to Spain, but which had heen forced by the wind to return to
Africa. 5. Titus Torquatus died on the same ship.^^® Caesar ordered Pompey
the Great’s^^’ grandsons and his daughter Pompeia to be killed along with
Eaustus Sulla^^® and Afranius and his son, Petreius.

6. Then he entered the City in a four-fold triumph,^"^® arranged the affairs
of the republic he had won back, and immediately set off for the Spains
to fight the Pompeys, Pompey’s sons.^"" Seventeen days after he had left
the City, he reached Saguntum and at once began to fight a long series
of battles with varying outcomes against the two Pompeys, Labienus, and
Attius Varus.

230 The Battle of the Nile, 27 March 47 BC.

231 Sections 1-2 of this chapter are drawn from Livy, 112.

232 Pharances was Mithridates’ son and attempting to re-establish his father’s kingdom. He
was defeated in a lightning campaign, culminating in the Battle of Zela, 2 August 47 BC. It was
on this occasion that Caesar coined the phrase, veni, vidi, vici — ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’

233 The modem Ras Dimas in Tunisia.

234 The modem Utique in Tunisia.

235 According to Livy, Per. 114, Petreius killed Juba and then himself. Orosius may have
misread Livy here. [Caesar], The African War, 94, has Juba mnning Petreius through and then
committing suicide.

236 More correctly Manlius Torquatus.

237 This is Orosius’s only use of this epithet.

238 The son of the former dictator and Pompey’s son-in-law.

239 The first sentence of section 3 is drawn from Livy, 113, the remainder of sections 3-5
from Livy, 114.

240 On 25 July 46 BC. The triumphs celebrated were over Gaul, Egypt, Pontus, and Africa.

241 Gnaeus and Sextus Pompey.

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7. The final battle was fought by the river Munda.^'*^ The forces engaged
were so large and the slaughter that followed so great that Caesar too, seeing
his lines cut down and forced back and that even his veterans were not
ashamed to retreat, was thinking of forestalling his coming disgrace on
defeat by suicide, when suddenly the Pompeys’ army broke and fled. 8.
The battle was fought on the same day that the Elder Pompey had fled from
the City to wage war; for four years since that day civil war had thundered
without ceasing around the whole world. Titus Labienus and Attius Varus
were killed in action, Gnaeus Pompey fled with 100 cavalry. 9 . His brother
Sextus Pompey swiftly mustered a not inconsiderable band of Lusitanians,
attacked Caesonius, was defeated, and then killed while fleeing. Caesar
attacked the town of Munda and eventually took it after very heavy losses.

243

1 . Caesar returned to Rome. Here, while he was restoring the constitu¬
tion of the state in a merciful fashion, contrary to the examples set by his
predecessors,^"^'* he was run through 23 times in the senate-house and died.
The ring-leaders of the plot were Brutus and Cassius, but most of the Senate
knew of it. 2. They say that there were more than 60 participants in the
conspiracy.The two Brutuses, Gains Cassius, and the other conspirators
withdrew to the Capitol with daggers drawn. For a long time, there was
a debate whether the Capitol should be burnt along with those who had
perpetrated the murder. 3 . The people, stricken with grief, took Caesar’s
body to the forum and cremated it on a pyre made from magistrates’ benches
and seats.

4 . Rome covered the breadth of her realm with her troubles and, turning
to slaughter herself, avenged each nation in the self-same place where

242 On 17 March 45 BC. Orosius refers to Munda more correctly as a town at 6.16.9.

243 Orosius has reversed the fates of the two Pompeys. Munda is normally taken as a city,
see Eutropius, 6.24. Its site perhaps lay near Bailen in Andalusia. Again, Orosius seems to
have misread Livy (116, though our extant summai'y of this book lacks any mention of these
Spanish campaigns) here.

244 Orosius uses maiores here. He wants the reader to think both of Caesar’s immediate
political predecessors, such as Sulla, but also of the Roman political tradition as a whole.
Augustine took the same view of Caesar’s death; see City of God, 3.30.

245 Orosius is likely to have drawn the details of Caesar’s death from Livy, 116. Eutropius,
6.25, perhaps drawing on the same source, also states that there were ‘sixty or more’ senators
and equestrians involved in the plot.

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she had conquered them. In Asia, Africa, and Europe - I am not merely
speaking of the three parts of the world, but of every corner of these three
parts - Rome exhibited her own people as gladiators, producing a heart¬
breaking performance of vengeance for an enemy’s holiday.

5. However, it was not enough that the causes of this strife were consumed
along with their authors. Their seeds fell in the same field and took root
there; seeds that would bring a great crop of troubles producing much sweat
for those who reaped them.^'*® Caesar, the victor of a war between citizens,
was killed by citizens, and a great column of conspirators was implicated in
the murder of this one single man. 6. It was clear that, given his unjust death,
Caesar would have many avengers, but the majority of Rome’s nobility
had bound themselves with the chains of this crime in order that this great
source of evil should swell up to the scale of a war, rather than be brought
to a close by a speedy act of vengeance.^'*’

7. Stories tell us how the famous Medea once sowed the teeth of a slain
serpent from which armed men, a crop befitting the sowing, came forth from
the earth and at once began to fight and lay each other low. 8. This story was
devised by poets’ imagination,^'** but how many armies did our Rome after
Caesar’s death give birth to from his ashes, and how many wars did she fight
to show her fecundity in producing misery? And these were not childrens’
stories, but spectacles for entire peoples.

9. However, it is pride that was the root of all these ills, it is this that
made civil wars flare up, and it is this that made them multiply.^'*® There¬
fore, it is not unjust to kill those who seek to kill unjustly as long as such
ambition and rivalry are punished by the same men who indulge in them.
This will be so until those who have refused to share power learn to endure
being ruled and supreme power is vested in the hands of one man so that all
men might enter into a very different way of life where all try in humility to
please and not arrogantly to give offence. 10 . However, a teacher of this

246 Orosius has in mind the aphorism, ‘for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also
reap’, Galatians 6.7.

247 A tortured reference to Cicero’s proposal to the Senate for a political amnesty at the
meeting convened immediately after Caesar’s murder; see 7.6.4—5.

248 Orosius is probably thinking of Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.121—30.

249 See Proverbs 13.10 and 16.18. Orosius has taken this notion from the teaching of
Augustine, who states it explicitly at City of God, 19.1. This book of City of God had not been
composed when the Histories were written, but the perils of superbia are an underlying theme
of Augustine’s approach to history and so Orosius is likely to have been aware of the notion.
See Corsini (1968) 68.

250 Given the context, this appears to be an argument for the providential nature of

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doctrine of humility is needed for us to reach this healthy state. Therefore
when Augustus Caesar’s rule had been opportunely set in place, the Lord
Christ was horn. He, although He was in the form of God, humbly took the
form of a slave^^' so that the teaching of humility might finally become more
fitting, at a time when the punishment of pride already served as an example
for all throughout the world.

1.710 years after the foundation of the City,^^^ after Julius Caesar was killed,
Octavian, to whom his uncle had bequeathed in his will both his estate and
name, and who was later, after he had assumed power, called Augustus,
came to Rome and, though he was but a youth, devoted himself to waging
civil war. 2. For, to outline briefly this mass of ills, he waged five such wars:
at Mutinafi^^ Philippi, Perusia, on Sicily, and at Actium. Two of these, the
first and last, he fought against Mark Antony; the second against Brutus and
Cassius; the third against Lucius Antonius; and the fourth against Gnaeus
Pompey’s son, Sextus Pompeyf^*

3. On being proclaimed a public enemy by the Senate, Antony had block¬
aded Decimus Brutus, besieging him at Mutina. Caesar^®® was sent along
with the consuls Hirtius and Pansa to free Brutus and defeat Antony. Pansa
arrived hrst and fell into an ambush. In the midst of his army’s defeat he
was gravely wounded by a javelin and died of his wounds a few days later.
Hirtius, on bringing reinforcements for his colleague, destroyed Antony’s
great army with enormous slaughter.^’® Caesar merely guarded their camp.
5. In a second battle against Antony, both sides suffered heavy losses. It
was then that the consul Hirtius was killed, Antony was defeated and put to
flight, and Caesar emerged victorious.^®’ Decimus Brutus confessed to him

Augustus’s rise to power. For Orosius’s belief in the necessity of one kingdom to rule the
world, see 2.1.4.

251 See Philippians 2.6-7.

252 44 BC. Orosius’s date is correct.

253 The modern Modena.

254 Taken verbatim, save one word, from Suetonius, Augustus, 9.

255 i.e. Octavian, who styled himself Gains Julius Caesar Octavianus.

256 14 April 44 BC.

257 21 April 44 BC. In fact, the Senate awarded a triumph to Decimus Brutus and only
an ovation to Octavian. This is underlined by Livy, Per. 119, who goes on state that this was
the reason for Octavian’s and Antony’s reconciliation. Perhaps Orosius has read his Livy too
hastily here.

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his part in the plot to kill Caesar, pouring out entreaties of repentance.^^*

6. At Zmyrna Dolahella killed Trehonius, who had been one of Caesar’s
killers. Dolahella was proclaimed to be a public enemy by the Senate.

Both the armies of the dead consuls began to obey Caesar.

7. After this, Decimus Brutus was captured and killed by the Sequani in
Gaul, and Basillus, another of the assassins, was killed at the hands of his
own slaves.

8. Through Lepidus’s careful diplomacy, Caesar became a friend of
Antony and, as a pledge of their friendship and reconciliation, was given
his daughter in marriage. 9 . They then went to the City and rumours began
that proscriptions would follow. The former praetor Gaius Thoranius paid
no attention to these and was killed when soldiers burst into his house.
Many others were also butchered. 10 . Because of this, the names of 132
senators were posted up to stop unlicensed killing spreading further and
out of control.^'’' Lepidus’s authority and signature appeared at the top of
the list, followed by Antony, and finally Caesar. 11 . It was on this list that
Antony proscribed his personal enemy Tullius Cicero^®^ and also his uncle,
Lucius Caesar, a crime made worse by the fact that his mother was still
alive.263 Lepidus cast his brother Lucius Paulus into the numbers of the
proscribed. 12 . Afterwards 30 knights were added to the proscription list.
There followed a long period in which many and various forms of murder
occurred. The houses of the proscribed were destroyed after everything
there had been stolen.^'’"^

13 . Meanwhile, Dolahella was fighting a sequence of battles with
Cassius in Syria in which he was defeated and committed suicide. Brutus
and Cassius gathered large armies and united their forces at Athens, having
laid waste to all of Greece. Cassius attacked the Rhodians by land and sea
and compelled them to surrender, leaving them nothing but their lives. 14 .
Caesar and Antony with their enormous war machine chased these two into

258 Sections 1-5 of this chapter are drawn from Livy, 117-18.

259 These three lapidary sections almost appear to be notes intended to be worked up at
a later date.

260 Antony’s step-daughter, Claudia. Orosius is dealing with the negotiations that led to the
creation of the Second Triumvirate in November 43 BC.

261 Orosius’s figure is taken from Livy, Pet: 120. Florus, 2.16.3, says 140 senators were
proscribed.

262 Orosius makes no previous mention of this animosity.

263 Caesai* was his mother’s brother.

264 Sections 6-12 are drawn from Livy, 119-20.

265 This section is drawn from Livy, 121.

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Macedonia and forced them to commit suicide, though it is very clear that it
was not bravery on Antony’s part, hut Caesar’s good luck, that brought this
battle to a close. 15 . At the time Caesar was ill and had decided to stay in the
camp to take some rest; however, urged on by the entreaties of his doctor,
who said that he had received a warning in a dream to take Caesar out of the
camp that day for good of his health, he went out with some difficulty onto
the field and mixed with the troops. Soon afterwards, his camp was taken by
the enemy. On the other hand, his troops captured Cassius’s camp. 16 . This
reduced Brutus and Cassius to despair, and they decided on a premature
death before the battle was over. Having summoned their assassins, Cassius
offered them his head and Brutus, his flank.^®^

17 . Meanwhile at Rome, Antony’s wife and Caesar’s mother-in-law,
Fulvia, exercised power in the way one would expect of a woman. As she
transformed consular into regal power, it is unclear whether she should be
counted as the last of the old order or the first of the new,^*^ but what is
clear is that she acted with arrogance towards those who had worked to
allow her assume her arrogant position. 18 . She even attacked Caesar on his
return to Brundisium,^*’® insulting him and stirring up factional plots against
him. When she was driven out of Rome by Caesar, she fled to Antony in
Greece.^®

19 . After he found he was on the list of the proscribed, Sextus Pompey
turned to piracy and laid waste to all the coast of Italy with his murdering
and pillaging. He captured Sicily, blocking Rome’s food and reducing her
to starvation. 20 . Soon after this, the triumvirs, or rather tyrants,^’® namely
Lepidus, Caesar, and Antony, made peace with him. But immediately
Pompey, contrary to the agreement, allowed fugitives to join his army and
was declared an enemy again.

21 . Pompey’s freedman, Mena, defected to Caesar with a fleet of 60

266 The battle at Philippi in northern Greece lasted two days; Cassius committed suicide
after the hrst day, and Brutus after the second. Orosius has elided the two events. Sections
14-16 are drawn from Livy, 123-24. Orosius indulges in bold revisionism as normally Antony
is rightly credited with winning the battle by ancient authors.

267 A striking statement, which shows that by late antiquity the principate was regarded as
a form of monarchy. See also 6.20.2 below.

268 The modern Brindisi.

269 Sections 17-18 are drawn from Livy, 125-26. Although he has alluded to it at 6.18.2,
Orosius suppresses any description of the bloody siege of Perusia, the modern Perugia, which
reflected very badly on Octavian.

270 This is Orosius’s first mention of the second triumvirate. The gloss of ‘tyrants’ appears
to be his own.

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ships and was put in charge of it on Caesar’s command. He and Statilius
Taurus^’' at once fought at sea against Pompey’s commander, Menecrates.
22. Then Caesar himself fought a bloody sea-battle against these same
Pompeians, but after triumphing, he lost almost all his victorious fleet by
shipwreck off Scylaceum.^’^

23. In three great battles Ventidius^’^ routed the Persians^^'* and Parthians
who had invaded Syria, and killed the Parthian king, Pacorus, in combat.™
This happened on the self-same day that Crassus had been killed by the
Parthians. After hardly taking a single strongpoint, Antony made peace with
Antiochus in order that he should seem to have been the one to have brought
this great affair to a close. 24. He made Ventidius governor of Syria and
instructed him to make war on Antigonus who had at that time defeated the
Jews, captured Jerusalem, pillaged the temple there, and given their kingdom
to Herod. Ventidius defeated him at once and accepted his surrender.^’®

25. The freedman Mena fled back to Pompey with six ships. He was
received with mercy and then set fire to Caesar’s fleet. Shortly before this,
Caesar had lost a second fleet through shipwreck. Afterwards, this same
Mena was ensnared in a naval battle by Agrippa^^^ and defected to Caesar
with six triremes. Caesar spared this three-times-a-turncoat’s life, but left
him without a command. 26. Agrippa then fought a victorious sea-battle
against Demochas and Pompey between Mylae and the Liparae islands,
sinking or capturing 30 ships and leaving the rest badly damaged. Pompey
fled to Messana. Meanwhile, Caesar had crossed over to Tauromenium,^^*
27. but Pompey then launched a sudden attack on him. Caesar had many
of his ships sunk, lost a great number of his men, and fled to Italy, but he
returned without delay to Sicily. 28. Here he met Lepidus who had come
from Africa and was trying through terror, threats, and arrogance to win back

271 A leading member of Octavian’s entourage who later became consul in 26 BC and City
Prefect or Praefectus Urbi in 16 BC.

272 The Gulf of Squillace off Calabria, notoriously treacherous for shipping; see Virgil,
Aeneid, 3.553.

273 Ventidius Bassus, one of Antony’s lieutenants.

274 Orosius is here thinking anachronistically of his own day.

275 Pacorus was, in fact, the son of the Parthian king, Orodes II.

276 Sections 19-24 are drawn from Livy, 127-28. Antigonus is the Jewish Hasmonean
pretender Mattathias Antigonus who allied with the Parthians to establish a kingdom in 40 BC.
He was crushed in 37 BC and subsequently killed in Antioch. He is also mentioned by Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 1978 (= correctly, 37 BC).

277 M. Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian’s right-hand man.

278 The modem Taormina on the east coast of Sicily.

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supreme command for himself. 29 . A few days later Agrippa fought a fierce
sea-battle against Pompey at Caesar’s command. Caesar stood watching on
the shore with his army drawn up in battle array. Agrippa defeated Pompey,
sinking or capturing 163 ships. Pompey only just escaped with 17 vessels.

30 . Lepidus, swollen with pride because he had 20 legions, plundered
Messana which he had turned over to his troops, and then spurned Caesar
twice when he came to meet him, indeed, he ordered that javelins to be
thrown at him. 31 . Caesar gathered his cloak around his left arm and so
managed to ward off these weapons. Soon, after spurring his horse on and
returning to his own men, he marshalled his army and marched against
Lepidus. After a few casualties, he won over the majority of Lepidus’s
legions to his side. 32 . When Lepidus finally realised where his vanity had
led him, he took off his general’s cloak, put on mourning, and went as
a suppliant to Caesar. He succeeded in keeping his life and property, but
was sent into perpetual exile. Caesar’s prefect, Taurus,^’^ marched through
almost all of Sicily with the sword, and cowed it into loyalty.^*®

33 . Caesar then had 44 legions under his sole command. The troops,
made more restive by their numbers, started to riot and demand that land be
given to them. Caesar kept his nerve, discharged 20,000 soldiers, restored
30,000 slaves to their masters, and crucified another 6,000 whose masters
could not be found. 34 . He entered the City to an ovation^*' and the Senate
decreed that he should have the power of a tribune permanently.^*^ It was at
this time that a spring of oil came out of the earth in a lodging house across
the Tiber and flowed copiously for the whole day.^**

1 . After he had crossed the Araxes,^*"^ Antony was assailed on all sides by
every kind of trouble, and finally returned with difficulty to Antioch with a
few men. In every battle, and he had provoked most of them, he fled, defeated
by a host of horse-archers.^*® His movements were hindered by his lack of

279 i.e. Statilius Taurus.

280 Sections 25-32 are drawn from Livy, 129.

281 A minor, but official, triumph.

282 See 6.20.7 below.

283 This miracle is recorded by Jerome, Chronicle. A Abr. 1976 (= 39 BC).

284 The river Aras in Armenia.

285 According to Plutarch, Antony, 50, Antony in fact won 18 victories. Nevertheless,
Orosius is right to see his campaign as a disastrous defeat.

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knowledge of these parts of the world, and the extremes of hunger drove
him to use unspeakable food.^** The majority of his troops surrendered to
the enemy.^®^ 2. After this, he crossed over to Greece and ordered Pompey,
who was readying an army for battle after his defeat by Caesar, to come to
him with a small escort. Pompey fled, and after many defeats by land and
sea at the hands of Antony’s generals, Titius and Eurnius, was captured, and,
soon after, put to death. 3. Caesar subdued Illyricum, Pannonia, and part of
Italy by force, bringing then under his control.

Antony captured Artabanes,^** the king of Armenia, by treachery and
deceit. He was bound with silver chains and forced to reveal the where¬
abouts of the royal treasury. Antony then stormed the city where the king
had betrayed that the treasure was hidden and carried off a great amount of
gold and silver.^*® 4 . Elated by obtaining this money, he ordered that war
be declared on Caesar, and divorce proceedings be begun against his wife,
Octavia, who was Caesar’s sister. He also commanded that Cleopatra should
come from Alexandria to meet him. 5. He himself set out to Actium where
he had stationed his fleet. When he found almost a third of his rowers had
died of starvation, he was unmoved and said, ‘lust keep the oars safe, for as
long as there are men in Greece, there will be no lack of rowers.’

6. Caesar advanced from Brundisium to Epirus with 230 warships.
Agrippa, who had been sent on ahead by Caesar, captured a great number
of merchantmen sailing from Egypt, Syria, and Asia, loaded with grain and
arms for Antony. Cruising round the Peloponnesian Gulf, he stormed the
fortified city of Mothona, which was held by Antony’s strongest garrison.

7. He then captured Corfu, chased and crushed in a sea-battle those who
fled, and, after performing many bloody deeds, returned to Caesar. Antony,
troubled because his soldiers were deserting and starving, decided to force
the issue. He suddenly marshalled his army, marched on Caesar’s camp,
and was defeated.

8. Two days after this battle, Antony moved his camp to Actium and
made ready to fight at sea. There were 230 warships, and 30 ancillary ships
- triremes equal in speed to Liburnians^®' - in Caesar’s fleet. Eight legions

286 There is a hint of cannibalism here.

287 A description of Antony’s disastrous expedition against the Parthians in 36 BC. Orosius
has drawn his account from Livy, 130.

288 Livy, Per. 131, gives the king’s name as Artavasdes.

289 Sections 2 and 3 are drawn from Livy, 131.

290 The modern Methoni.

291 At the time of Actium the standard warship was the quinquereme. The Liburnian was

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along with an additional five praetorian cohorts were embarked on the fleet.
9. Antony’s fleet numbered 170 ships, but what it lacked in numbers it made
up for in size, for his vessels stood ten feet proud from the waterline. 10 . The
great and famous battle took place at Actium.^*^ From the fifth to the seventh
hour its outcome was in the balance, and both sides suffered very heavy
casualties. During the rest of the day and the following night, things turned
in Caesar’s favour. 11 . First, Queen Cleopatra fled with 60 of the swiftest
ships, then, Antony pulled down the standard from his flagship and followed
his wife as she fled. As the dawn came up, Caesar brought his victory to
completion. 12. 12,000 men are said to have been killed on the defeated side
and 6,000 taken prisoner of whom 1,000 later died while receiving medical
treatment.^^^

13 . Antony and Cleopatra decided to send the children that they had had
together to the Red Sea along with some of the crown jewels, while they
themselves established garrisons at the two horns of Egypt, Pelusium and
Parethonium, and prepared a fleet and army to renew the war.

14 . Caesar was acclaimed general for the sixth time, and went to
Brundisium as consul for the fourth time along with his colleague in office,
Marcus Licinius Crassus. There he divided his legions into garrisons to
station around the world. He then advanced to Syria and soon after came
to Pelusium, where Antony’s garrison received him of their own free will.

15 . Meanwhile, Cornelius Callus, who had been sent on ahead by Caesar,
received a pledge of loyalty from the four legions that Antony had stationed
as a garrison in Cyrene. He then defeated Antony, captured Parethonium,
which is the first city in Egypt after the Libyan border,and then defeated
Antony again by the Pharos.

16 . Antony engaged Caesar in a cavalry battle in which he fled after
being defeated in a pitiable fashion. On the first of Sextilis,^^^ Antony went
down to the port at dawn to draw up his fleet, when suddenly all his ships
defected to Caesar. Deprived of his only protection, he retreated in panic
with a few men to the palace. 17 . Then, with Caesar’s approach imminent
and rioting in the city, Antony ran himself through with his sword and was
carried half-dead to Cleopatra into the tomb where she, determined to die.

a light bireme originally developed on the Illyrian coast that was widely used as a scouting
vessel; see Morrison (1995) 72—73.

292 2 September 31 BC.

293 Sections 4-12 are drawn from Livy, 132.

294 See 1.2.88.

295 Later renamed August. Here 1 August 30 BC.

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had hidden herself away. 18 . Cleopatra, after she learnt that she was to be
kept alive for Caesar’s triumph, committed suicide of her own free will, and
was found lifeless, having been bitten, it is believed, by a snake on her left
arm. The Psylli, who are accustomed to drink snake venom out of men’s
wounds by sucking and drawing it forth,^®® were summoned to her aid by
Caesar, but in vain.

19 . Caesar, triumphant, was left master of Alexandria, the greatest
and wealthiest city in the world. Rome was so enriched by her wealth
that because of the abundance of cash, the price of land and other saleable
commodities doubled from the price they had been up until to that time.
20 . Caesar ordered Antony’s eldest son to be killed, along with Publius
Candidus, who had always been a bitter enemy to Caesar and had proved
a traitor to Antony as well; Cassius Palmensis, who was the last victim to
atone for the violence done to Caesar’s father;^®^ and Quintus Ovinius, who
was executed above all for not having been ashamed, despite being a Roman
senator, at the disgusting disgrace of being in charge of the queen’s spinning
and weaving workshops. 21 . Caesar then marched with his infantry into
Syria and thence sent them into winter quarters in Asia, after which he
returned to Brundisium via Greece.^^*

1 . 725 years after the foundation of the City, when Emperor Caesar Augustus
himself was consul for the fifth time along with Lucius Apuleius,^^® Caesar
returned in triumph from the east. On the sixth of January, he entered the
city in a triple triumph and then closed the gates of Janus for the first time,
now all the civil wars had died down and come to an end.^®* 2 . This day
was the first on which he was called Augustus.^”' This title, previously left
unclaimed, and which no other ruler up to our own times has dared to use,
proclaimed that he had legitimately taken up the mantle of power over the
world, and that from that day ultimate power was vested and remained in the

296 See Pliny, Natural History, 7.2.14.

297 i.e. Julius Caesai* who had adopted Octavian in his will.

298 Sections 13-21 are drawn from Livy, 133.

299 29 BC. Orosius’s date is correct, but Lucius should read Sextus.

300 A concatenation of errors — Augustus’s triumphs were held in the August of this year,
but the gates of Janus had been previously closed by decree of the Senate on 11 January (see
the Fasti Praenestini) while Augustus was absent from Rome.

301 In fact, this title was awarded two years later in 27 BC. Livy may have elided these two
events, see Per. 134, and Orosius has seemingly misread him because of this.

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hands of one individual - a system that the Greeks call monarchy.

3. No believer, nor even anyone who opposes the faith, is ignorant of
the fact that we keep on this same day, the sixth of January, the feast of
Epiphany, that is the appearance or manifestation of the Lord’s sacrament.

4 . At present, there is no reason, nor does the context demand, that I speak
more fully concerning this sacrament which we observe with the utmost
devotion. I shall keep this for those who are interested and not foist it upon
those who are not.^“ Nevertheless, it is right carefully to have underlined
this point to show that Caesar’s rule had been ordained in advance entirely
to prepare for the future coming of Christ.

5. The first proof is that when he entered the City, returning from
Apollonia, after his uncle, Gains Caesar’s^®'* murder, at around the third
hour, a circle of light like a rainbow surrounded the sun in a clear, serene
sky as if to mark him as the one, mightiest man in this world and by himself
the most glorious man on the earth in whose days would come He Who by
Himself made and rules over the sun and the whole world.6. The second
proof is that when the legions of Antony and Lepidus came over to him in
Sicily, and he had restored 30,000 slaves to their masters and had stationed
the 44 legions over which he had sole command in positions to keep the

302 An interesting side-light on the political thought of the later Roman Empire. Augustus
tried very hard indeed to persuade his people he was not a monai'ch. Cassius Dio writing in the
third centuiy, however, was of the opinion that a monarchy was established at this time, History,
53.17.1. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 1968 (= 47 BC), unlike Orosius, sees Julius Caesar as the
hrst of the emperors. This would be impossible for Orosius, as it would destroy his impor¬
tant synchronism between the change in Rome’s political system and the epiphany. Orosius’s
comment on the use of ‘Augustus’ as a title is very odd. Augustus remained a standai'd part of
the nomenclature of emperors after Octavian. Presumably, Orosius means no one dared to use
the name standing by itself which is true: there was no ‘Augustus IT.

303 This synchronisation appears to be unique to Orosius. The actual date of Augustus’s
proclamation was 11 January. The combination is ideal for Orosius, as it is further evidence
that Augustus is the divinely ordained secular precursor to Christ. This strange form of words
Orosius uses about the epiphany shows that he knows that his interpretation of it is at odds with
that of Augustine, and increasingly that of the Western church as a whole. While Augustine saw
the epiphany as purely a commemoration of the visit of the magi to the infant Christ, others,
including the Eastern church and, from Orosius’s words, we may assume a substantial part
of the Spanish church (cf. Isidore of Seville who combines the two meanings. Etymologies,
6.18.6-7), saw the epiphany primarily as the commemoration of Christ’s own baptism and that
baptism’s revelation of His mission on earth. See Mommsen (1959).

304 i.e. Julius Caesar.

305 This portent is found in Livy, Per. 117; Julius Obsequens, 68; Suetonius, Augustus, 95;
and Velleius Paterculus, 2.59. It is also found in Dio, 45.4.4.

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world 8316/“ entering the city to an ovation, he decreed that all previous
debts of the Roman people be rescinded, and even ordered the records of
them to be destroyed.At that time, as I have already mentioned, a spring
of oil flowed all day out of a lodging house.What could be more obvious
than that this sign declared that the birth of Christ would occur when Caesar
ruled the whole world? Eor Christ in the language of that race into which
and from which he was bom, means ‘the anointed’.^®

7. So at the time when permanent tribunician power was granted to
Caesar, a spring of oil flowed all day at Rome.^'° These clearest of signs were
set forth in heaven and on earth for those who did not heed the voices of the
prophets. They tell us that in the principate of Caesar in the Roman Empire
for a whole day - interpreted this means that as long as the Roman Empire
endures - Christ and, after him, the Christians - that is the oil and those
anointed by it - will march from a lodging house - that is the welcoming
and bountiful Church - in great and inexhaustible numbers to restore, with
Caesar’s aid, all slaves who acknowledge their master and hand over the rest
who are found to have no master to death and punishment. The debts from
their sins are to be redeemed in Caesar’s reign in that city whence the oil
flowed of its own accord.

8. The third proof is that when he entered the city holding a triumph
as consul for the fifth time, on that very day that we have named above,
he closed the temple of Janus for the first time in 200 years,and took
the glorious name of Augustus. What could be more plausibly or credibly
believed than that, given this co-incidence of the peace, his name, and the
date, this man been predestined by the secret ordering of events in order to
prepare the way for His coming when he took up the banner of peace and
assumed the title of power on the same day on which He would shortly
make Himself known to the world?

306 A confused argument. At 6.18.33, Orosius speaks of Augustus having sole command
of 44 legions after Lepidus’s surrender, but only at 6.19.14, i.e. after the Battle of Actium, says
that they were stationed round the world. This is a key part of his argument here, as it shows
that Augustus was master of the world.

307 36 BC. Orosius may intend his reader to draw a parallel with the Hebrew practice of
a ‘Jubilee’.

308 6.18.34.

309 An odd statement as ‘Christos’ does indeed mean ‘the anointed one’, but in Greek.

310 An en'or, but perhaps an excusable one. Augustus did not obtain tribunician power
until 23 BC; however, he was awarded the sacrosanctitas of a tribune in 36 BC. Orosius in his
enthusiasm has probably failed to make the distinction.

311 See 3.8.2^.

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9 . What happened to prove the truth of the faith which we profess when
Caesar returned to the City for the fourth time at the end of the Cantabrian
War, when he had pacified every nation is better set down at the right time
in my history.^'^

1 . 726 years after the foundation of the City, when the Emperor Caesar
Augustus was consul for the sixth, and Agrippa for the second, time,^'^
Caesar, realising that little would have been achieved in Spain over the
last 200 years, if the Astures and Cantabrians, the two sturdiest Spanish
tribes, were left to live by their own devices, opened the gates of the temple
of Janus and marched to the Spains himself at the head of an army.^*'^ 2.
The Cantabrians and Astures live in the northern part of the province of
Gallaecia by the end of the Pyrenees, not far from the second Ocean.^'^ 3.
These tribes were not only ready to defend their own freedom, but even
dared to take away that of their neighbours, frequently raiding the Vaccaei,
Turmogi, and Autrigonae.

Caesar pitched his camp at Segisama^'® and by using three columns
surrounded almost all of Cantabria. 4 . A long period elapsed when the army
was worn out for no purpose and often found itself in danger. Finally, Caesar
ordered a fleet to cross the Ocean from the Aquitanian GulT'’ and land
troops before the enemy realised what was happening. 5. The Cantabrians
then fought a great battle under the walls of Attica,^'* were defeated, and
fled to Mount Vinnius, a natural stronghold.^'® Here they were besieged and
almost starved to death. Then the town of Racilium^^® was Anally captured

312 See 6.21.11.

313 28 BC, Orosius’s chronology is correct.

314 Orosius devotes a striking amount of space to the Cantabrian Wars, betraying a personal
interest here. His account draws heavily on Florus, 2.33.

315 After previously using archaic divisions of Spain, Orosius oddly chooses to use those
of his own day here. The province of Gallaecia, comprising north-west Spain, was only created
in the late third centuiy AD by Diocletian. The phrase ‘second Ocean’ is striking. Orosius
perhaps means the ocean stream to the north of Spain rather than that to its west.

316 The modern Sasamon.

317 The Bay of Biscay.

318 The text is corrupt here. The town concerned was Bergida (Florus, 2.33.49), the
location of which is disputed; see Pastor Munoz (1977) and Ramirez Sadaba (1999). The best
account of the war in English is Syme (1970).

319 The location of this mountain, normally spelt Vindius, is disputed; see n. 318 above.

320 Probably the modem Aradillos.

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and sacked after long and fierce resistance. 6. At the same time, Caesar’s
lieutenants, Antistius and Eirmus,^^' subdued by heavy and serious fighting
the further-flung parts of Gallaecia whose mountains and woods run down
to the Ocean. 7. Digging a ditch 15 miles long, they besieged Mount Medul-
lius^^^ which towers over the Minius river,^^^ and where a great host of men
had taken refuge. 8. Then, when this naturally savage and indomitable
race discovered that they had neither sufficient means to survive the siege
nor were equal to fighting a battle, their fear of slavery led them willingly
to commit suicide, and so almost all of them killed themselves with fire,
sword, or poison.

9. Now the Astures, who had pitched their camp by the river Astura,^^^
would have overwhelmed the Romans with their great numbers and cunning
plans, had they not been betrayed and forestalled. They made a sudden attack
intending to overwhelm Caesar’s three lieutenants, who were separated with
their legions into three camps, with three equally-matched columns of their
own, but they were betrayed by their own people and discovered.^^*’ 10 .
Afterwards, Carisius brought them to battle and, after heavy Roman losses,
defeated them. Some of them escaped from the battle and fled to Lancia.^^^
When the troops had surrounded the town and were preparing to fire it,
their commander, Carisius, persuaded his men not to do this and got the
barbarians to surrender voluntarily. He made great efforts to leave the town
safe and undamaged, so it could bear witness to his victory.^^® 11 . Caesar
accorded this honour to his victory in Cantabria; he ordered that the gates of
war be closed once more. And so, the gates of Janus were then closed for a
second time by Caesar, this being the fourth time they had been closed since
the foundation of the City.^^^

12 . After these events, Caesar’s stepson, Claudius Drusus,^^“ was allotted

321 More correctly Fumius; see Dio, 45.13.6. Manuscripts of Florus are corrupt at this
point and Orosius’s error may well be a product of this.

322 Again, the location of this mountain is disputed; see n. 318 above.

323 The modern river Minio.

324 Compare the end of the siege of Numantia at 5.7.16.

325 The modern river Esla.

326 According to Florus, 2.33.56, the Astures were betrayed by the philo-Roman Brigaecini.

327 See n. 318 above.

328 The incident with Carisius is not found in Florus. It is striking that Orosius refers to
the Spaniards as barbarians here.

329 25 BC.

330 Normally known as Dmsus, the empress Livia’s son by her previous husband. He died
on campaign in Germany in 9 BC.

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the provinces of Gaul and Raetia^^' and subdued by arms the greatest and
fiercest of the German tribes.

13 . For at that time, all these tribes, hurrying as if to set a day to make
peace, came in waves to take their chance in battle or discuss peace terms.
Their intention was to accept terms if they were defeated, or enjoy their
freedom in peace if they should be victorious. 14 . It was then that the
Noricans, Illyrians, Pannonians, Dalmatians, Moesians, Thracians, Sarma-
tian Dacians, and most of the Germans,^^^ including the most powerful
tribes, were defeated or checked by a variety of commanders, or cut off
from the empire by those great rivers the Rhine and Danube.

15 . In Germany Drusus first subdued the Usipetes and then the Tencteri
and Catti.^^"' He almost annihilated the Marcomani. 16 . After this, he defeated
together in a single battle, though one that went hard with his men, the most
powerful peoples to whom nature has granted strength, and their way of
life, the ability to make use of that strength - the Cherusci, Sueves, and
Sygambri. 17 . Their courage and ferocity can be judged from the following
fact: whenever their womenfolk were trapped among their carts by a Roman
advance and they ran out of weapons or anything that could in their fury be
used as a weapon, they would dash their own small children to the ground
and then fling them into the faces of their enemy, becoming parricides twice
over for the murder of each of their children.

18 . It was at this time too that Caesar’s general, Cossus, tightened the
over-wide range of the nomadic Musolani and Gaetuli in Africa, forcing
them through fear not to molest Rome’s frontiers.

19 . Meanwhile, envoys from the Indians and Scythians, after crossing
the whole world, finally found Caesar at Tarragona in Hither Spain, beyond
which they would have been unable to seek him. They reinvested Caesar
with the glory of Alexander the Great, 20 . for just as an embassy from
the Spaniards and Gauls had come to Alexander seeking peace when he

331 Raetia occupied what is now Switzerland and the Tyrol.

332 This list is taken from Florus, 2.21.

333 Orosius implies that Augustus was looking for ‘safe boundaries’ for his empire. For a
modern, contrary view, see Brunt (1963).

334 Normally spelt Chatti.

335 Drusus’s campaigns against the Germans are drawn from Florus, 2.30. Orosius has
extrapolated the near annihilation of the Marcomanni from Florus’s comments that Drusus
erected a tropaeum (a monument composed of the arms and armour of the enemy and dedicated
to the Gods) in their tenitory. He has also transposed the account of the German women from
Florus’s account, 2.22, of the women of Alpine tribes, cf. 5.16.13 and 5.16.19.

336 This section is drawn from Florus, 2.31.

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was in the middle of the east at Babylon, so now the Indian from the east
and the Scythian from the north begged him in the utmost west, in Spain,
for peace, coming as suppliants with gifts from their peoples.21. After
waging war in Cantabria for five years and inclining and restoring all of
Spain to everlasting peace, thus giving it some rest from its weariness,
Caesar returned to Rome.

22. In those days he waged many wars himself and through his
commanders and lieutenants. Among these, Piso was despatched to fight
the Vindelici and, after defeating them, returned victorious to Caesar at
Lyons.

23. Caesar’s stepson, Tiberius,^^® put an end to a new uprising of the
Pannonians with great slaughter.^'"’ 24. The same man then immediately
went on to fight the Germans, carrying off 40,000 prisoners in triumph
from them.^'*' 25. This great, fearful war was fought over three years by 15
legions; there had hardly been a greater war, according to Suetonius, since
that against Carthage.

26. At the same time,^'^^ Quintilius Varus, who behaved with incredible
arrogance and greed towards his subjects, was completely annihilated along
with three legions by rebellious Germans.27. Caesar Augustus took this
disaster for the republic so seriously that the strength of his sorrow often
made him bang his head against the wall, crying out, ‘Quintilius Varus, give
back the legions‘^‘'^

28. Agrippa overcame the Bosphorans and forced them after their defeat

337 Indian embassies are mentioned by Augustus in his Res Gestae, 31. For the comparison
with Alexander, see 3.20.1-3. Tarragona, though on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, is used
as a symbol of Rome’s most westerly possessions, so preserving the parallel with Alexander.
The account of the embassies has been drawn, and embroidered, from Fionas, 2.34.62. See also
Suetonius, Augustus, 21. Given Orosius’s love of pai'allelism, it is difficult not to think of the
three magi at the nativity in this context.

338 The Vindelici were an Alpine tribe. Orosius has made an error here — these operations
were in fact carried out by Drusus; see Fionas, 2.22.

339 The empress Livia’s son by her former husband, Ti. Claudius Nero, and the future
emperor Tiberius.

340 In AD 8.

341 The figure of 40,000 is found in Suetonius, Tiberius, 9.

342 Suetonius, Tiberius, 16. but this is a specific reference to the Illyrian War.

343 At the same time as the Illyrian War, not the expedition into Germany. Orosius has
misread Suetonius; see Suetonius, Tiberius, 16-17.

344 The disaster of Teutoburgerwald in AD 9. The comment on Varus’s an'ogance is drawn
from Floims, 2.30.31.

345 Quoted verbatim from Suetonius, Augustus, 23.

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to surrender, recovering in battle the Roman standards that they had once
captured under Mithridates.^"'®

29. The Parthians, thinking that all the eyes of the conquered, pacified
world were on them, that the whole might of the Roman Empire would be
turned on them alone, and because they were already gnawed by a guilty
conscience over the death of Crassus which they knew would he avenged,
returned to Caesar of their own free will the standards that they had captured
when they killed Crassus. After handing over members of their royal family
as hostages, and through their sincere supplications, they then earned a firm
treaty for themselves.

1 . So in the 752"“* year after the foundation of the City, Caesar Augustus,
after giving every nation from east to west, from north to south, and all
around the encircling Ocean an all-embracing peace, closed the gates of
Janus for a third time.^“** 2 . That they remained shut in perfect peace from
that time for almost the next twelve years was shown by the rust on them
nor were the gates pushed open again until the sedition at Athens and the
troubles in Dacia in Augustus’s extreme old age.^'*® After he had closed the
gates of Janus, Caesar endeavoured to nourish and propagate hy peace the
state that he had sought out hy war. He promulgated many laws through
which he inculcated the custom of discipline in the human race through a
respect that was freely given.

4 . He rejected being called ‘master’ on the grounds that he was only
a man. Indeed, when he was watching the games, the line ‘O good and
fair master’ was spoken in one of the mimes and everyone broke out into
enthusiastic applause as if it referred to him, but he at once suppressed this
unbecoming flattery by gesturing with his hand and through the expression
on his face. The following day he put an end to it by issuing a stem edict and
after this would not let either his children or grandchildren call him master

346 The campaign, though not the recovery of the standards, is noted by Jerome, Chronicle,
AAbr. 2003 (= 12 BC).

347 The standards were returned in 20 BC. The hostages were the four sons of the Parthian
king, Phraates IV.

348 i.e. the third time Augustus had personally closed the gates and the fifth time in all
Roman history that they had been closed. See Augustus, Res Gestae, 13, and Suetonius,
Augustus, 22. The date of this event is impossible to determine accurately. Orosius’s date
conveniently coincides with the birth of Christ.

349 The problems in Dacia broke out in AD 10, those in Athens in AD 14.

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even as a joke.^^° 5. Now at that time, namely in the year when Caesar,
through God’s decree, had established the most secure and stable peace on
earth, Christ, for Whose coming that peace was a servant and upon Whose
birth angels exultantly sang to listening men, ‘Glory to God in the Highest,
and on the Earth peace towards men of good will’ was born. At that same
time he to whom all earthly power had been granted, did not suffer, or rather
did not dare, to be called master of mankind, since the True Master of all the
human race was then born among men.

6. So in the same year when Caesar, whom God in His deep mysteries
had marked out for this task, ordered that the first census be taken in each
and every province and that every man be recorded, God deemed it right to
be seen as, and become, a man.^^^ Christ was therefore born at this time and
at His birth was immediately recorded on the Roman census. 7. This census
in which He Who made all men wished to be listed as a man and numbered
among men was the first and clearest statement which marked out Caesar as
the lord of all and the Romans as masters of the world,^^^ both individually
and as a people. Never since the beginning of the world or the human race
had anyone been granted to do this, not even Babylon or Macedon, not to
mention any of the lesser kingdoms.8. Nor can there be any doubt since
it is clear to all from thought, faith, and observation that Our Lord, Jesus
Christ brought to the apogee of power this city which had grown and been
defended by His will, vehemently wishing to belong to it when He came and
to be called a Roman citizen by decree of the Roman census.

9. Now, therefore, as we have arrived at that time when the Lord Christ
first enlightened the world with His coming and gave Caesar a kingdom
entirely at peace, I shall make this the end of my sixth book. 10. In the
seventh, if, with God’s aid, I am equal to the task, I shall deal with the times
when the Christian faith germinated, the times when it grew all the more

350 A very close paraphrase of Suetonius, Augustus, 53.

351 Luke 2.14.

352 cf. Luke 2.1.

353 A quotation from Virgil, Aeneid, 1.282, where Jupiter predicts the coming greatness
of Rome to Venus. Orosius may just be displaying his learning here, but it is possible that he
wants to show his readers that a prophecy made by a pagan god has in fact been brought about
by the True God.

354 Orosius’s theory of the four kingdoms appears to have broken down here. There is no
mention of Carthage, and the allusion to other kingdoms sits very uneasily with the theory.

355 Orosius is unaware that prior to Caracalla’s grant of universal citizenship in AD 212,
most provincials, though listed on the census, would not have been Roman citizens. Neverthe¬
less, this is a bold move by Orosius which turns the Romans into the new chosen race.

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amid the hands of those who would have stopped it, and how, after having
advanced to its present position, it is still gnawed at by the abuse of those
against whom we are forced to make this reply. 11. And since from the
beginning of this work I have not passed over in silence the fact that men
sin and are punished for those sins, now too I shall expound what persecu¬
tions were inflicted on Christians, what vengeance followed them, and from
this that all men are as a whole predisposed to sin and so are chastised
individually.

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1 . Enough material has been gathered together, I believe, from which it is
shown openly, without using that secret which belongs to the faithful few,'
that the One, True God Whom the Christian Faith proclaims created the
world and, when He willed it, both dispersed His creation widely, though He
was widely unknown, and also united it into one when He was proclaimed
by His Only Son, and that at the same time His power and patience have
shone forth through many proofs of different kinds.

2. As regards this matter, I have come to realise in a short time that the
narrow-minded and dispirited are offended that such great power mingles
with patience that is so great. ‘If He is powerful enough to create the world,
to set the world at peace, and to introduce His Worship and news of Himself
throughout the world,’ they say, ‘what need is there of this great (or perni¬
cious, as they hold it) patience which means there eventually comes to pass
through men’s failings, disasters, and suffering, the thing which this God
Whom you proclaim could rather have brought about immediately through
His power?’ 3. To such objections I could truthfully answer that the human
race was at first created and devised so that by living religiously, at peace,
and without any labours, it would earn eternal life as the fruit of its obedi¬
ence, but after abusing the liberty given by the goodness of its Creator, it
turned its licence into contumacy and descended from contempt towards
God to forgetting Him altogether. 4 . Now God’s restraint is just, and just
in both regards: for He has not, though spurned, utterly destroyed those to
whom He wishes to show mercy, and He allows them to be afflicted with
trials while He should wish it, as, though spurned. He is mighty. From this it
follows that He ever justly guides man, unaware though he is, to whom one

1 This is an obscure remark, but is probably an attack on pagan mystery religions, or
Gnostic Christian sects that retained an inner set of secrets; see Augustine, City of God, 2.6.
However, Raymond (1936) 318 n.l believes it is a reference to inner knowledge kept secret
by orthodox Christians.

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day, on his repentance. He will loyally restore possession of His grace of old.

5. But since these matters, though expounded in a true and compelling
fashion, nevertheless demand faith and obedience, and as at present my
business is clearly with those who disbelieve (although I shall see if one
day they will believe), I shall swiftly put forward arguments with which,
even if they do not wish to agree, it is impossible to disagree. 6. Now, so
far as human understanding is concerned, both our groups live a religious
life, granting that there is a higher power and worshipping it. On the other
hand, our faiths are distinct: ours declares that everything came from, and
is sustained through. One God, whereas theirs thinks that there are as many
gods as there are things in the world.^ 7. ‘If it was the power of the God you
preach that made the Roman Empire so great and sublime,’ they say, ‘why
then did His restraint stop Him from bringing this about earlier?’ One can
reply in the same vein to these objectors: if it was the power of those gods
whom you preach that made the Roman Empire so great and sublime, why
then did their restraint stop them from bringing this about earlier? 8. Were
they not yet gods? Or did Rome not exist at that time? Or were they not
worshipped then? Or did she not seem ripe for empire yet? If these gods did
not yet exist, then the argument is at an end,^ as what purpose would there
be in delaying to discuss beings whose very nature cannot be discovered?
But if they were indeed gods, then either their power, as my opponents hold
it, or their restraint is at fault - their restraint, if it was present, their power, if
it was absent. 9. Or, if it seems more plausible that there were then gods who
were able to further the empire, but the Romans whom they could, and justly,
make mightier did not yet exist, we will reply that we are seeking for the
power that brings things into being, not the knowledge of how to shape what
is already there. Our search is for mighty gods as they consider them, not for
base craftsmen whose art fails when they have no material to work on.'^ 10 .
If these beings always had the knowledge of the future and the will to act -

2 This statement contradicts Orosius’s previous statement at 6.1.3-4 that the vast majority
of pagans concede that there is only one god.

3 For two reasons - first, because for Orosius it necessarily follows that if the pagan gods
did not exist, then God must have been responsible for Rome’s rise, and second, because, given
the general belief in antiquity that the truly authentic had always existed, any concession that
there was a period of time when the pagan gods did not exist would be a concession that the
Christian God was superior to them.

4 The distinction is a common one in both Christian and pagan thought - the manipulation
of pre-existing matter, as opposed to the creation of matter itself, is a mark of the ‘demiurge’,
rather than God or the gods.

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and we should assume that they had knowledge of the future, since, where
omnipotence is concerned, to foreknow and to will one’s acts are one and
the same thing - whatever their will demanded and was foreseen by them
ought not to have been put off, but to have been created. This is especially
so since they tell us that their Jupiter was in the habit of turning anthills into
races of men as a game.®

11. Nor do I think that we need to consider the care that they took to
perform religious ceremonies, since amid their endless sacrifices there was
no end or respite from endless disasters until Christ, the Saviour of the
World, shone forth. The peace of the Roman Empire was preordained for
His coming, and, although I think I have already demonstrated this satisfac¬
torily, I shall try to add a few proofs more.

1. At the beginning of my second book,® when I sketched out Rome’s
beginnings, I noted the many points of similarity between the Assyrian city
of Babylon, which was the leading nation at the time, and Rome, which
dominates the nations in a similar way today. 2. I showed that the former
had the first, while the latter has the last, empire; that the former slowly
declined, while the latter gradually grew; that the former lost her last king
at the same time the latter gained her first; that while, when Cyrus invaded,
Babylon fell as if dead, Rome was confidently rising and, after expelling her
kings, began to be governed by the counsels of freemen; 3. and that, most
of all, at the time when Rome won her freedom, at that time too the Jewish
people who had been enslaved under the kings at Babylon received their
freedom, returned to holy Jerusalem and rebuilt the temple of the Lord as
had been foretold by the prophets.^

4. Moreover, I have noted how in between the kingdom of Babylon in
the east and that of Rome which was rising in the west and nourished by her
eastern inheritance, came the Macedonian and African kingdoms and that
that these, one to the south and the other to the north, briefly held the role
of guardian* and attorney.^ 5. Now I know that no one has ever doubted that

5 See Ovid, Metamorphoses, 7.622, and Hyginus, Fables, 52.

6 See 2.1-3.

7 See Esdras, 1.1-6. The parallelism between Rome and the Jews is of interest here. Orosius
is anxious to show Rome, even at this eaiJy date in her history, plays an equally important part
as Israel in God’s plans for mankind.

8 A tutor in Roman law oversaw the affairs of a minor.

9 cf. 2.1.4—5. A curator in Roman law oversaw the affairs of one incapable of acting on

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the kingdoms of Babylon and Rome are rightly called the kingdoms of the
east and west. Its position under the heavens and the altars, which endure
to this day, set up by Alexander the Great by the Riphaean mountains,'®
teach us that the Macedonian kingdom was in the north. 6. And what can
be seen both in history books and in cities themselves tells us that Carthage
surpassed all of Africa and extended the boundaries of her realm not only
to Sicily, Sardinia, and the rest of the islands adjacent to her, but even to
Spain. 7. It has also been stated how both kingdoms endured for an equal
number of years before Babylon was laid waste by the Medes and Rome
invaded by the Goths."

8.1 shall now add to those facts this point in order to make it clearer that
God is the sole Ruler of all ages, kingdoms, and places. 9. The kingdom of
Carthage stood a little over 700 years from its foundation to its destruction.'^
Equally, the kingdom of Macedon lasted a little less than 700 years from the
reign of Caranus to that of Perses.'^ However, the number seven, by which
all things are judged, put an end to both of them. '"' 10 . Even Rome herself,
although she reached the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ with her empire
intact, was nevertheless also affected when she came to this number 11 . to
the point that in the 700“' year after her foundation, a fire of unknown origin
rose up and consumed 14 of her districts. According to Livy, Rome had
never suffered as great a fire with the result that some years later Caesar
Augustus spent a great deal of money from the public treasury to make good

their own behalf.

10 See 1.2.52.

11 See 2.3.3.

12 Orosius has used the figure from Jerome that he feels suits his purpose. Jerome, Chron¬
icle, A Abr. 1871, states that Caithage endured 678 years from her foundation to her fall, adding
that ‘others’ believe the figure to be 749. Oddly, the former figure would have made a better fit
for Orosius’s theory, as Carthage’s lifespan would then be closer to Macedon’s, but he chooses
not to use it. His manuscript may have been corrupt, or perhaps his arithmetic was at fault.
Alternatively, he may not have been able to resist making a verbal contrast between ‘a little
over', paulo amplius, and ‘a little \qss' , paulo minus.

13 According to Jerome, Caranus began his reign in A Abr. 1204 and the kingdom fell in A
Abr.lS>50, making a total of 646 years.

14 For Orosius seven is the number of completion as evinced by the seven days of creation.
The composition of the Histories in seven books is also influenced by this view. The classical
biblical example of the destructive power of completion is the fall of the walls of Jericho
accomplished by seven tnampets on the seventh day they were paraded around the town walls,
Joshua 6.13-17. For another example of the power of the number seven on the earlier Christian
imagination, see Cyprian. Treatise 3 {De Lapsis lOn the Lapsed), 1.20.

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the areas that had been burnt down.*^ 12. Were I not recalled by consider¬
ation of the present, I could demonstrate that Babylon lasted for twice this
number of years, when she was finally captured by Cyrus after existing for
a little more than 1,400 years.'®

13.1 freely add this fact - that the famed holy man, Abraham, to whom
divine promises were given and from whose seed Christ was promised
to come forth, was born in the 43'® year of the rule of Ninus, the first of
Babylon’s kings, albeit his father Belus too is said, on no good evidence,
to have been the first king.'’ 14. Then in the present epoch Christ, Who had
been promised to Abraham in the reign of Ninus, the first king, was bom at
almost the end of the 42"® year of the rule of Augustus Caesar,'* the hrst of
all Rome’s emperors, although his father, Caesar, too distinguished himself,
though rather as the architect of the empire than as an emperor.'^ 15. He
was born on 25 December, the date when all the increase of the coming
year first begins to grow.’" And so it has come to pass that while Abraham
was born in the 43'® year, Christ’s nativity came at the end of the 42"® year,
so that instead of coming forth in part of this 43'® year, it should come forth
from Him.’' 16.1 believe that it is well enough known how much that year
abounded with both new and unaccustomed blessings without me listing
them; an all-embracing peace came to all the lands of the globe, there was
not a cessation but an abolition of all wars; the gates of Janus of the two
faces were closed as the roots of war were not pruned, but torn out; this was
when the first and greatest census was held, when all God’s creation of great
nations unanimously swore loyalty to Caesar alone, and, at the same time,
by partaking of the census were made into one community.”

15 See 6.14.5.

16 See 2.2.

17 Augustine, City of God, 18.2, lists Belus as the Assyrians’ first king.

18 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2015.

19 i.e. Julius Caesar. Caesar is mentioned here in order to create a Roman parallel to the
Ninus-Belus dispute. It was convenient for Orosius in this respect that Julius Caesar was at
times viewed as the first ‘emperor’; he is the first subject, for example, of Suetonius’s Lives of
the Caesars and Jerome notes that in 47 BC {A Abr. 1968) ‘Julius Caesar was the first Roman
to obtain sole power from which the leaders of the Romans are called Caesares’.

20 Christ therefore is the symbol of a new epoch.

21 An ingenious way of preserving the parallelism between Abraham and Christ in the
face of the chronological evidence and, at the same time, of emphasising Christ’s superiority
to Abraham.

22 Orosius wishes us to see the census creating a community in the same way that the
Eucharist did among Christians.

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1 . So 752 years after the foundation of the City, Christ was horn and brought
to the world the faith that gives salvation. Truly, He is the Rock set at the
heart of things, where there is ruination for whoever strikes against Him,
but where whoever believes in Him is saved.Truly, He is the blazing Fire
that lights the way for whoever follows Him, but consumes whoever makes
trial of Him.^"^

2. He is the Christ, the Head of the Christians,^’ the Saviour of the good,
the wicked’s Castigator, the Judge of all men. Who sets forth both in word
and deed an example for those who will follow Him, through which to teach
them all the more that it is necessary to endure the persecutions which they
undergo in return for eternal life. He began His own sufferings soon after
He came into the world through a virgin birth. For when Herod, the king of
Judaea, learnt of His birth, he immediately decreed that He be murdered,
and in his pursuit of this one child, killed a host of little children. 3. Hence
we see that just punishment befalls the wicked who vilely pursue their paths
of evil;^® hence we see that the degree to which the world is at peace is due to
the grace given to believers and that the degree to which it is troubled is due
to the punishment of blasphemers, though however things stand, faithful
Christians have security as they either are at rest in the safety of the life
eternal or profit even from this life on earth. I shall show this more readily,
using the facts themselves to do so, as I reach these events in sequence.

4 . After the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of the World, came down
to earth and was enrolled as a Roman citizen in Caesar’s census,^’ the gates
of war were kept closed, as I have mentioned, for twelve years in the blessed
calm of peace. Caesar Augustus then sent his grandson Gains to govern the
provinces of Egypt and Syria.^® 5. As Suetonius Tranquillus tells us,^^ on

23 The rock of Salvation is a common Old Testament theme: see 2 Samuel 22.47, and
Psalm 18.46. The rock is interpreted as Christ by St Paul: see 1 Corinthians 10.4. For the rock
as a stumbling block to the wicked, see Isaiah 8.14, and Romans 9.33.

24 A reference to the pillar of lire that guided the Israelites through Sinai (Exodus 13.21)
and the refiner’s fire of Malachi 3.2; 3.3.

25 ‘Head’ here is metaphorical, referring to Christ’s role as the leader of the Christians, and
actual, refening to His position as the head of the mystical body of the Church.

26 For the massacre of the innocents, see Matthew 2.16, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2019. For Herod’s death, a particularly gruesome affair that we are meant to remember here,
see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 17.174-78.

27 6.22.6-8.

28 The son of Augustus’s daughter, Julia, and Agrippa. He was given proconsulai* power
over the east in 1 BC.

29 Suetonius, Augustus, 93.

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crossing into Palestine from Egypt, he disdained to pray in the holy, much-
visited, temple of God at Jerusalem. After he told Augustus what he had
done, the emperor in an error of judgment praised him, saying that he had
acted prudently. 6. And so in the 48“’ year of Caesar’s rule such a terrihle
famine befell the Romans that Caesar commanded that troupes of gladi¬
ators, all foreigners, and great masses of slaves, apart from doctors and
teachers, be expelled from the City.^“ So when the prince sinned in God’s
holy place and the people were beset by famine, the degree of the offence
was made clear by the severity of its punishment.

7 . After this, to quote the words of Cornelius Tacitus: When Augustus
was an old man, the gates of Janus were opened and new peoples at the
furthermost ends of the earth were sought out, sometimes with profit and
sometimes with loss. This went on until the reign ofVespasian.^^ Thus Corne¬
lius. 8. However, when at that time the city of Jerusalem had been taken and
destroyed, as the prophets had foretold, and the Jews exterminated, Titus,
who had been ordained by God’s Judgment to avenge the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ,^^ closed the temple of Janus on celebrating his triumph along
with his father, Vespasian.

9 . Therefore, although the temple of Janus was opened in Caesar’s last
years, nevertheless for many years afterwards, though the troops were girt
for battle, no sounds of war were to be heard. 10 . It was for this reason
that in the Gospels when the Lord Jesus Christ was asked by His disciples,
at a time when all the world was enjoying the profoundest calm and a single
peace lay over every people, about the end of days which was to come. He
said, among other things: 11 . And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of
wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but
the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in
divers places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver
you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations

30 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abn 2022. For the expulsions, see Suetonius, Augustus, 42.

31 A fragment from a lost section of Tacitus’s Histories. Orosius has presumably doctored
this passage, as we know that Nero closed the gates of Janus in AD 66 (Suetonius, Nero, 13)
and Tacitus is unlikely to have made the error attributed to him here. For Orosius it would be
impossible to present a persecutor of Christians such as Nero as a bringer of peace. He was
either unaware of Nero’s closing of the gates or suppressed it.

32 See Daniel 9.26, and, perhaps, Zachariah 14.2.

33 Given the quotation from Tacitus cited above, this is a striking statement. Orosius
appears to have become carried away with his own rhetoric.

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for my name’s sake}’’’ 12 . He taught this from His divine foresight, strength¬
ening the faithful by His warning and confounding unbelievers through His
prophecy.

1. 767 years after the foundation of the City, Tiberius Caesar obtained the
empire after the death of Augustus Caesar and remained in power for 23
years.2. He neither waged war himself nor even engaged in any signifi¬
cant war through his lieutenants,^® except to anticipate and crush some local
rebellions in a number of places, 3. though it is true that in the fourth year
of his reign, Germanicus, who was Drusus’s son and Caligula’s father,
celebrated a triumph for his campaign against the Germans against whom
he had been despatched by Augustus in his old age.^’

4. However, Tiberius for most of his reign presided over the state with
such great and grave moderation that he wrote to some governors who were
urging him to increase the tribute from the provinces that ‘the mark of good
shepherd is to shear, not flay, his flock’

5. After Christ the Lord had suffered, risen from the dead, and sent forth
His disciples to preach, Pilate, the governor of the province of Palestine,
made a report to the emperor Tiberius and the Senate concerning Christ’s
suffering, resurrection, and the miracles which then followed, both those
performed by Himself in public and those performed by His disciples in His
name. He also reported that He was believed to be God by the growing faith
of a great number of men. 6. Tiberius proposed, and strongly recommended,
to the Senate that Christ be considered as God, but the Senate was angry
that this matter had not been brought to its notice first, as was the custom,
in order that it might be the first to decree that a new cult be adopted. There¬
fore, it refused to consecrate Christ and passed a decree that Christians be

34 Matthew 24.6-9.

35 Orosius’s date is correct. Tiberius reigned from AD14-37. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2030, is one year out at this point placing the beginning of Tiberius’s reign in AD 13.

36 Eutropius, 7.11, states that while Tiberius did not go to war, he waged war through his
lieutenants. As Orosius wants to depict the early empire as a time of peace, he has chosen to
downplay the nature of fighting under Tiberius.

37 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2033. Jerome has Germanicus triumph over the
Parthians, but the German campaign is intended. For the beginning of these campaigns, see
Syme (1974) ch. 4 and Wells (1972) ch. 7.

38 A close paraphrase of Suetonius, Tiberius, 32. Tiberius’s words are taken verbatim.

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completely extirpated from the City,^® above all because Tiberius’s prefect,
Sejanus, strongly opposed adopting the religion.'"’ 7. Tiberius then passed
a decree threatening death to those who denounced Christians.'” Because
of these events, Tiberius gradually abandoned his praiseworthy moderation
in order to take revenge on the Senate for opposing him - for whatever the
king did by his own choice was pleasing to him, and so from the mildest of
princes there blazed forth the most savage of wild beasts. 8. He proscribed
great numbers of the Senate and forced them to their deaths; he left scarcely
two of the 20 noble men whom he had chosen as his councillors alive,
murdering the others on a variety of charges;'’^ he killed his prefect, Sejanus,
when he was plotting revolution;'’^ 9. left obvious signs of having killed both
his natural son, Drusus and his adopted son, Germanicus,'*'’ with poison,
and killed the sons of his own son, Germanicus.'*^ 10. It would cause horror
and shame to go through his deeds one by one. So great was his seething
frenzy of lust and cruelty that those who had spurned salvation under Christ
the King were punished by king Caesar.'’® 11. In the 12"' year of his reign,
a new and unbelievable kind of calamity befell the city of Eidenae. While
the people were watching a gladiatorial show the amphitheatre’s seating
collapsed, killing more than 20,000 people.'*^ 12. This is indeed a worthy

39 See Jerome Chronicle, A Abr 2051; similar material occurs in the fourth-century Acts
of Pilate. The story first appears in Tertullian, Apology, 21. It is possible that Tertullian may
have seen an earlier, lost, version of the Acts of Pilate, but Barnes (1971) 108-9, 149 is
inclined to believe that he invented the story himself. If a pagan source were involved, the
original meaning of the text could be ‘that Christ be considered a God’. The Latin (christus
deus haberetur) is potentially ambiguous, but a straight-forward Christian reading is the most
likely.

40 Sejanus was Tiberius’s Praetorian Prefect, i.e. commander of the Praetorian Guai'd. He
had an extremely black reputation in antiquity and fell spectacularly from grace in AD 31. It
was a wise apologetic move by Orosius to link him to opposition to Christianity which would
appear in a favourable light simply because it was disliked by Sejanus. However, the grounds
for Orosius’s assertion are difficult to discover. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2050, notes that
Sejanus continually urged Tiberius to extirpate the Jews, but makes no mention of a similar
animus against Christians. Orosius has either drawn on another source or misread/manipulated
this passage.

41 Sections 5-7 use material drawn from Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.2.

42 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2052, and Suetonius, Tiberius, 55.

43 Taken from Suetonius, Tiberius, 5.

44 Germanicus was the son of Tiberius’s brother, Drusus.

45 cf. Suetonius, Tiberius, 54.

46 Orosius has ingeniously managed to present Tiberius’s change for the worse, a topos of
ancient writers, as almost a product of divine vengeance.

47 Modem Castel Giubileo. The disaster happened in AD 27. Orosius has taken his

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example for future generations of the great punishment inflicted on the men
of that time who had eagerly gathered together to watch the death of their
fellow men at the very time God had willed Himself to become a man for
man’s salvation.

13 . It was in the 17'*' year of the same emperor’s reign, when the
Lord Jesus Christ voluntarily gave Himself up to suffer, though it was the
Jews who blasphemously arrested and fixed Him to the cross.'** Rocks in
the mountains were torn apart by the greatest earthquake the world has
known, with great parts of the biggest cities being laid low by its hitherto
unknown violence.'*^ 14 . On the same day at the sixth hour, the sun’s light
was completely effaced, a hellish darkness suddenly fell over the earth,^°
and, as the saying goes, impious mortals fear’d eternal night}^ 15 . The
darkness was so great that it was clear that neither the moon nor the clouds
had cut off the sun’s light, for it is said that on that day the moon was in its
M'*" station at the opposite side of the heavens and as far as it could be from
the sun, and that stars shone over all the heavens during the hours of the day,
or rather of that terrible night. This is testified to not only by the faith of the
Holy Evangelists, but also by a number of Greek books.^^

16 . Now from the time after the passion of the Lord which the Jews
prosecuted with all their might, ceaseless disasters roared around them
until Anally, emptied of all strength and scattered, they passed away.®*
17 . Tiberius, using the pretext of military service, deported their youth to
provinces with poor climates, while he expelled the remainder of the race,
and those who were members of similar sects, from the City, threatening
those who disobeyed with life-long slavery.®'* 18 . He certainly remitted the

information from Suetonius, Tiberius, 40, who gives the same number of casualties. The
incident is also mentioned by Tacitus, Annals, 4.62, who gives the number of dead as 50,000.

48 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2047, has the eighteenth year. Orosius attempts to exonerate
the Roman authorities of responsibility for Christ’s death, but only the Roman governor had
the power of execution in Judaea.

49 See Matthew 27.51, though the implication here is that the earthquake was local.

50 See Luke 23.44^5.

51 V\xg\\, Georgies, 1.468.

52 The bulk of this material is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2047. Jerome mentions
that the earthquake is found in the works of several pagan writers. This is no doubt from where
Orosius has drawn his comment to this effect. Orosius has also embroidered Jerome’s account
of substantial earthquake damage in Nicaea into damage in ‘the biggest cities’ (7.4.13).

53 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2048.

54 Drawn from Suetonius, Tiberius, 36, where Jews, astrologers, and devotees of Egyptian
cults are mentioned. Tiberius deported 4,000 Jews to Sardinia; Tacitus, Annals, 2.85.

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tribute and even gave their freedom to the cities of Asia destroyed in the
earthquake.On his death, there were hints that he had been poisoned.®^

1 . 790 years after the foundation of the City, Gains began his reign. He
was the second emperor after Augustus, and remained in power for fewer
than four years.He was more deeply steeped in crime than all who had
preceded him, and seemed to have been set up as a truly worthy castigator
for the blaspheming Romans and persecuting Jews. 2. This man, to encap¬
sulate the breadth of his cruelty in a few words, is said to have cried, ‘If only
the Roman people had one neck" and often to have complained about the
state of the world in his day on the grounds that it was not distinguished by
any great calamities.

3. O blessed seeds of the Christian epoch! How great was your strength
in human affairs that man’s cruelty was more able to wish for disasters, than
to hnd them! Behold, how brutality, when starved, laments universal peace:

within remains

Imprison ’d Fury, bound in brazen chains:

High on a trophy rais’d of useless arms;

He sits, and threats the World with vain Alarms^^

4 . Once slaves in rebellion and fugitive gladiators terrified Rome,
brought ruin to Italy, and laid waste to Sicily. Indeed, they were feared by
almost every race across the face of the earth. However, in these days of
well-being, that is to say the Christian Epoch, not even a Caesar who hated
it could tear up the peace. 5. He set out with an almost unbelievably great
retinue to seek out an enemy for his idle troops and, after rushing through
Gaul and Germany, hnally paused for breath on the shore of the Ocean, near
where one can see across to Britain.™ After he had received the surrender
there of Minocynobelinus,®' the son of the king of the Britons, who had been

55 This earthquake occurred in AD 17. See Suetonius, Tiberius, 48, where we are told that
tax was remitted for three years, and also Tacitus, Annals, 2.47 and 4.13.

56 See Suetonius, Tiberius, 73.

57 Gaius, normally known as Caligula, ruled from AD 37—41. Orosius’s date is correct.

58 Suetonius, Gaius, 30.

59 Yirgii, Aeneid, 1.294-96.

60 See Suetonius, Gaius, 43-47. The emperor’s rush to Germany was in order to forestall
Gaetulicus’s rebellion in Upper Germany.

61 Orosius has read Suetonius carelessly here. The original text (Suetonius, Gaius, 44)
reads, ‘Adminius, Cunobelinus’s son’; Orosius has elided the two words.

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expelled by his father and was wandering in exile with a few followers, the
emperor returned to Rome, having failed to find grounds for waging war.

6. At the same time, the Jews, who had been justly afflicted by disas¬
ters on all sides because of Christ’s suffering, were killed in a riot that
had broken out in Alexandria and driven from the city. They sent a certain
Philo, undoubtedly one of the most learned men of his time, as an envoy
to Caesar to lay their grievances before him.®^ 7. But Caligula, since he
hated all mankind, and especially the Jews, ignored Philo’s embassy and
commanded that all the Jews’ holy places and, above all, the famous
sanctuary at Jerusalem be profaned by the gentiles’ sacrifices, be filled with
statues and idols, and that he himself be worshipped as a god there. 8. The
governor Pilate, who had pronounced the death sentence on Christ and dealt
with, and provoked, a great deal of rioting in Jerusalem, was so tormented
by Gaius’s orders that he ran himself through with his own hand and sought
an end to his catalogue of woes by a quick death.*’^

9. Gaius Caligula even added this crime to his lusts: he first committed
incest with his sisters and then exiled them.®"^ After he had ordered that
everyone he had exiled was to be killed at the same time, he himself was
killed by his own bodyguards.®’ 10 . Two notebooks were discovered among
his secret papers; one was called ‘The Dagger’, the other ‘The Sword’.
Both contained the names and notes on the most distinguished members of
the Senatorial and Equestrian orders whom he had marked down for death.
A great chest full of various poisons was also found. It is said that soon
afterwards, when these were flung into the sea on Claudius Caesar’s orders,
the sea became infected, a great number of fish died, and that their bodies
were washed up all over the nearby shore by the tide.®® 11 . How great a host
of men escaped from the death that had been prepared from them could be
seen from the host of dead fish, and it became clear to everyone what this
great quantity of poison, made even worse by artifice,®’ could have wrought
in the City, given that it polluted the very seas when it was poured into them

62 For the embassy, see Philo, The Embassy to Gaius {De Legatione ad Gaium). The riot
happened in AD 38.

63 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2055, and Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.5-1.

64 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2056. For the charge of incest, see also Sueto¬
nius, Gaius, 24. Two of Caligula’s three sisters, Livilla and Agrippina, were exiled in AD 39;
see Suetonius, Gaius, 29. The emperor’s third, and favourite, sister Drusilla had already died
in AD 38.

65 The material in this section is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2056.

66 The material in this section is drawn from Suetonius, Gaius, 49.

67 i.e. Caligula’s agents had augmented the strength of natural poisons.

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with no plan at all. All this, indeed, is great proof of God’s mercy which He
showed by extending His grace to a people who, in part, were on the point
of believing in Him and by tempering His wrath against a people who were
at that time obstinate in their unbelief.

1 . 795 years after the foundation of the City, Tiberius Claudius became the
third man to obtain the kingdom after Augustus. He remained in power for
fourteen years.®* 2. At the beginning of his reign, Peter, the apostle of the
Lord Jesus Christ, came to Rome and with his trustworthy words preached
the Eaith that brings salvation to all who believe, proving its truth with his
mighty miracles. Erom that time there began to be Christians at Rome.®®

3. Rome felt the benefit from her faith, for, although after the death of
Caligula, the Senate and consuls had made many decrees to abolish the
empire, restore the republic to its old form of government, and sweep out
the family of the Caesars in its entirety, 4 . Claudius, soon after securing his
power, acted with great clemency, something previously unknown at Rome.
In order to stop vengeance raging against such a large number of nobles, as
would have happened, had it once begun, he obliterated all record of those
two days on which the unfortunate debates and decrees about the constitu¬
tion of the state had occurred and decreed that everything said or done at
that time be pardoned and forgotten for ever.®® 5. In this way the Athenians’
glorious and famous custom of amnesty which the Senate, on Cicero’s
advice,®' had tried to introduce at Rome after Julius Caesar’s death, but
which failed when Antony and Octavian burst in upon the scene to avenge
the death of Caesar, was now established, without anyone asking him, by
Claudius through his innate sense of mercy, although he had an even more
compelling motive to put these conspirators to death.®®

68 Now normally known as Claudius. Orosius’s date is one year out. Claudius’s rule began
in 194AUC/AD4i.

69 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2058. Jerome merely mentions that Peter founded the church
at Rome and was bishop there for twenty-five years.

70 The material in sections 3 and 4 is drawn from Suetonius, Claudius, 10-11. The two
days referred to are those immediately after the assassination of Caligula when the Senate
debated the possibility of restoring a Republic at Rome. See also Dio, 60.1.

71 See 6.17.6, where a more negative view of Cicero’s amnesty proposal is taken.

72 Orosius takes a more negative view of the Athenian amnesty when he first mentions it
at 2.17.15. There it fails because of human nature. Orosius therefore could be hinting that its
success here shows God’s favour towards Rome. Claudius’s motive for revenge was stronger

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6. At the same time, a great miracle attesting the presence of God’s
grace occurred. Furius Camillus Scribonian, the governor of Dalmatia,
plotted civil war and seduced many powerful legions to change their oath
of allegiance.’^ 7. But on the appointed day when they were all to come and
rally together to their new emperor, the troops were unable to crown their
eagles, or to take up, or move, their standards in any way at all.’"' The army’s
confidence was so shaken by their belief in such a great and unexpected
miracle that they repented, deserted and killed Scribonian four days after his
coup began, and remained loyal to their old allegiance. 8. It is clear enough
that nothing has ever been more woeful or destructive to Rome than civil
war. So can anyone who denies that this incipient tyranny and impending
civil war were crushed by the Divinity because of Peter’s arrival in the City
and the few tender Christian seedlings that were scarcely yet budding to
profess their faith, give a similar example from previous times of a civil war
put down in this way?

9. In the fourth year of his reign, Claudius wanted to show that he was
a prince of some use to the state and looked everywhere for a war and
a victory to come from it. He therefore launched an expedition against
Britain which appeared to be in a state of chaos because some fugitives had
not been returned there. He crossed over to the island where no one either
before, or after, Julius Caesar had dared to go, 10. and there, in the words
of Suetonius Tranquillus, "within but a few days he received the surrender
of most of the island without having fought a battle and without any blood
being shed.’’^^ He even added the Orkney Islands, which lie beyond Britain
in the Ocean, to the Roman Empire and then returned to Rome in the sixth
month after beginning his journey.’®

than that of Octavian and Antony because the ‘conspiracy’ (i.e. the Senatorial debate about the
possibility of restoring a Republic at Rome) had been directed at himself rather than a relative
or political ally.

73 Scribonian’s abortive coup took place in AD 42; see Suetonius, Claudius, 13.

74 A legion’s standards were normally garlanded, the coronatio signorum, at the beginning
of a major campaign, see Suetonius, Claudius, 13. For an in-depth discussion of honours given
to military standards, see Hoey (1937).

75 The account of Claudius’s British campaign is taken from Suetonius, Claudius, 17.
Suetonius mentions the bloodless nature of Claudius’s campaign to disparage him, but for
Orosius it is another sign of divine grace.

76 Claudius’s invasion of Britain took place in AD 43. Orosius has probably drawn the
implausible detail about the Orkneys (for which see 1.2.78) from Eutropius, 7.13.2-3. Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2061, when noting Claudius’s triumph for his British conquests, also states
that the emperor added the Orkneys to the empire. However, claims that Claudius conquered
the Orkneys are also found as early as Claudius’s contemporary, Pomponius Mela (3.49-54).

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11. Now let anyone who wants to do so, make a comparison concerning
this single island between the one time and the other; between the one war
and the other; and between the one Caesar and the other. I shall say nothing
about the outcome, since the latter produced the happiest of the victories,
but the former the bitterest of disasters.In this way, Rome might finally
realise that the share of good fortune that she had in her past deeds was due
to the hidden providence of Him through Whose recognition she enjoys a
plenitude of good fortune in so far as she is not besmirched by the stains of
blasphemy.

12. In the same year of Claudius’s reign, a severe famine that had been
foretold by the prophets broke out in Syria.’* But Queen Helena of Adiabene,
a convert to the faith of Christ, generously ministered to the needs of the
Christians of Jerusalem by importing grain from Egypt.’®

13. In the fifth year of Claudius’s reign, an island 30 stades long rose
from the deep between Thera and Therasia.*®

14. In the seventh year of his reign, when the procurator Cumanus was
governor of Judaea, such a violent riot broke out in Jerusalem during the
days of the azyma^^ that it is said that 30,000 Jews were trampled or suffo¬
cated to death when the people were crushed together at the gates as they
attempted to leave.*’

15. In the ninth year of the same emperor’s reign, Josephus tells us that
the Jews were expelled from the City by Claudius. However, I am more
interested by Suetonius who speaks as follows: ^Claudius expelled the Jews
from Rome as they were continually rioting because of Chris f. 16. It is not
at all clear whether he ordered the Jews to be restrained and suppressed
because they were rioting against Christ, or whether he wished to expel the

77 Orosius deals with Caesar’s invasion in Britain at 6.9.2-9 where he makes no negative
comments.

78 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2061. Jerome names the prophet as Agabus of Acts, 11.28,
21 . 10 .

79 Drawn from Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.12. Adiabene lies in Northern Iraq.
Queen Helena did visit Jerusalem between AD 46 and AD 48, but was a convert to Judaism,
not Christianity; see Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 20.1-5.

80 AD 46; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2064. The islands mentioned are the two main
islands of the Santorini group. The island formed at this time is now known as Mikra Kammeni.

81 The Passover, azymus meaning ‘unleavened'; see Luke 22.1.

82 This incident occurred in AD 49. Orosius has taken the numbers of the dead and the
manner of their death from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2064. See also Rufinus, Ecclesiastical
History, 2.19.

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Christians at the same time on the grounds that they had a related religion.*^

17. It is the case, however, that in the following year, a great famine
occurred at Rome and the emperor was surrounded hy his people in the
forum and, to his great disgrace, set upon with insults and hits of bread.
It was only with difficulty that he escaped the rage of the aroused plebs,
fleeing back to his palace through a secret gate.^

18. A little later, he killed, on the slightest of pretexts, 35 senators along
with 300 Roman knights. His own death showed evidence of poisoning.®^

1. 808 years after the foundation of the City, Nero Caesar became the
fourth man to reach the principate after Augustus and remained in power
for almost fourteen years.*® He was a follower of his uncle Gains Caligula
in all his crimes and vices*’ and, indeed, surpassed him, for he practised
wantonness, lust, extravagance, greed, and cruelty^^ with every kind of
crime. He was so overcome with depravity that he went round almost all
the theatres in Italy and Greece, putting on the shame of motley clothing and
often dreaming that he had defeated trumpet-players, harpists, tragedians,
and charioteers.** 2. He was so driven by lust that it is said he did not hold
back from his mother or his sister through any reverence for blood-ties,
that he took a man to wife, and that he himself was received as a wife by
another man. 3. He was so given to unbridled extravagance that he fished
with nets of gold towed by lines of purple, and bathed in hot and cold

83 There is no mention of an expulsion of the Jews under Claudius in Josephus’s works.
The quotation is taken from Suetonius, Claudius, 25. Orosius rightly notes that the passage
can bear more than one reading. For a detailed discussion of this passage, see Riesner (1998)
180-87.

84 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2065 (= AD 51). Tacitus, Annals, 12.43, also dates this famine
to AD 51. The details of Claudius’s treatment are taken from Suetonius, Claudius, 18. Given
that in the Histories divine vengeance inevitably follows anti-Christian actions, Orosius’s
notice of this incident suggests strongly that his own reading of this passage was that Claudius
had ordered the expulsion of Christians from Rome in the previous year.

85 For the death of the nobility, see Suetonius, Claudius, 29; for Claudius’s own death, see
Suetonius, Claudius, 44.

86 Orosius is one year out. Nero’s reign began in 807 At/C/AD 54. Nero ruled until AD 68.

87 Orosius has drawn the bulk of his account of Nero’s crimes from Eutropius, 7.13-14.

88 The list of crimes is taken verbatim from Suetonius, Nero, 26.

89 An abbreviated form of information found in Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2082. While
Jerome says that Nero was crowned as the victor in these games, Orosius, following Suetonius,
Nero, 24, denigrates him further by implying that in fact he was defeated.

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unguents.^ It is even said that he never made a journey accompanied by
fewer than 1,000 carriages. 4. Einally, he set the city of Rome alight to
create a spectacle for his own delight: for six days and seven nights the royal
gaze feasted on the burning city.®' 5. The granaries made of squared stones
and the famed blocks of flats of yesteryear that the rushing flames could
not reach were demolished by engines that had once been got in readiness
for wars against foreigners, and set ablaze. The wretched plebs were forced
to use tombs and mausolea as their lodgings. 6. Nero himself watched the
scene from the top of highest tower of Maecenas’s villa®^ and is said, in
his delight at the flames’ beauty, to have sung the Iliad dressed in a tragic
actor’s robe.®^ 7. His greed was so pronounced that after this Are in the City
which Augustus boasted that he had found made of brick and left made of
marble,®'' he forbade anyone to return to the ruins of their home and stole
everything that had in some way survived the flames. 8. He commanded that
the Senate grant him 10,000,000 sestertii for his expenses every year®® and
confiscated the property of many senators for no given reason, wiping out
the entire wealth of all Rome’s merchants in a single day, torturing them
into the bargain. 9. His wild cruelty was so unrestrained that he killed the
greater part of the Senate and almost annihilated the Equestrian order. He
did not even hold back from parricide, but had no hesitation in murdering
his mother, brother, sister, wife,®" and all his other blood relations and kin.

10. He added to this mound of iniquities his rash impiety towards God.
Eor he was the first to execute and put to death Christians at Rome and
command that they be hunted out and tortured in the same way throughout
all the provinces.®® He tried to extirpate the very name of Christian, killing
the blessed apostles of Christ, Peter and Paul, crucifying the former and

90 Taken virtually verbatim from Eutropius, 7.14.1.

91 The fire of Rome occurred in AD 64.

92 Found on the Esquiline Hill.

93 Orosius’s account of the fire of Rome is drawn from Suetonius, Nero, 38. Orosius has
amplified Suetonius’s account by adding the gloss that the war engines which demolished the
insulae had been prepai'ed for foreign wars, hence what had been got ready for Rome’s increase
was used to destroy her.

94 Suetonius, Augustus, 28.

95 Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2083.

96 Respectively: the younger Agrippina (murdered AD 59); Britannicus (in fact Nero’s
step-brother, murdered in AD 55 by Agrippina rather than Nero); Claudia Octavia (again
Nero’s step-sister, murdered in AD 62); and Poppaea Sabina, who died after a miscarriage
provoked by an assault on her by Nero in AD 65.

97 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2084, and Rufinus, Ecclesiastical
History, 2.24-5; cf. Tertullian, Apo/ogy, 5.

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putting the latter to death by the sword.®* 11 . Soon great numbers of disas¬
ters piled up and beset the wretched City from all sides. For the following
autumn, such a great plague broke out in the City that 30,000funerals were
entered on Libitina’s booksOn its heels disaster occurred in Britain,
where the two main towns were sacked amid a stupendous slaughter of
Roman citizens and their allies}^ 12. Moreover, in the east the impor¬
tant provinces of Armenia were lost,^°^ Roman legions passed beneath the
Parthian’s yoke,and Syria was only retained with great difficulty. In
Asia, three cities, namely Laodicea, Hierapolis, and Colossae, were levelled
by an earthquake.'®®

13 . Nero, when he learnt that Galba had been proclaimed emperor by his
army in Spain, abandoned all hope and courage. As he had devised unbeliev¬
able evils to trouble, nay rather destroy, the state, the Senate proclaimed
him a public enemy. He killed himself four miles from the City, while, to
his great disgrace, he was running away. His death put an end to the entire
family of the Caesars.'®^

98 Also drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2084. Orosius knows, but suppresses, the
fact that Suetonius, Nero, 16, includes the persecution of Christians among Nero’s good deeds.
For the details of Peter and Paul’s death, see Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle, 2.29. Paul escaped
the grimmer form of death by virtue of being a Roman citizen, whereas Peter was merely a
free non-Roman. However, Orosius would not have understood this distinction, which was
extinct in his day.

99 Perhaps because Orosius has drawn this phrase virtually verbatim from Suetonius, he is
happy to mention Libitina, the pagan goddess of funerals.

100 Boadicea’s uprising of AD 60. Following Suetonius, Nero, 39, Orosius speaks of two
towns when in fact three, Colchester, London, and St Albans, were sacked; see Tacitus, Annals,
14.32-33.

101 An anachronistic embroidery of Suetonius’s comments. In this period Armenia,
sandwiched between the Roman and Parthian empires, enjoyed a precarious independence.
It was partitioned by Rome and Persia in AD 384, Rome annexing her portion as a province.
The campaigns in Nero’s reign under Corbulo were an attempt to reinstate a client ruler in the
country.

102 This military disaster occurred at Rhandeia, the modem Kharput, in AD 62; see Dio,
62.21. The legions involved were XII Fulminata and lUI Scythica, commanded by L. Caesen-
nius Paetus.

103 This list of disasters is a close paraphrase, in a simplified form, of Suetonius, Nero, 39.

104 Laodicea is the modem Denizli Ladik. Hierapolis, the modem Pamukkale, and the site
of Colossae lies near the modern Chonae; all are located in Turkey; see Jerome, Chronicle,
A Abr. 208. Orosius has pushed the earthquake forward in time so that it follows, rather than
precedes, as it does in Jerome’s account, Nero’s persecution of the Christians. In this way, it
becomes part of God’s vengeance for persecution - one of Orosius’s favourite themes.

105 The details of Nero’s death and the fact he was the last of the ‘Caesars’, i.e. the Julio-
Claudian dynasty, are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2084.

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1. 824 years after the foundation of the City, Galba usurped the empire
while he was in the Spanish provinces.'®® Soon, on hearing that Nero was
dead, he came to Rome and, after angering everyone by his greed, brutality,
and idleness, adopted Piso, a noble and hard-working youth, as his son
and heir to the throne, with whom in the seventh month of his rule he was
murdered by Otho.'®’

2. Rome paid for the wrongs she had recently inflicted on the Chris¬
tian religion with the death of princes and the outbreak of civil war, and
those legionary standards which God had held fast in place on the arrival
of the apostle Peter in the City so that it was impossible to raise them to
begin the civil war which Scribonian had planned, were now, after Peter was
killed in the City and Christians butchered in all sorts of ways, loosened
throughout the world. 3. Galba at once rebelled in Spain, and soon after
he had been quashed, Otho at Rome, Vitellius in Germany, and Vespasian
in Syria all seized command and their arms at the same time.'®* 4. Now let
those who moan about our Christian times witness, albeit unwillingly, both
God’s might and His clemency, as they recall with what speed the flames of
these great wars were kindled and then extinguished; previously great and
continual disasters had come from the smallest of reasons, but now these,
the greatest of thunderclaps, which rang out on all sides, portending great
ills, were calmed with least amount of trouble. 5. Eor the Church, though
troubled by persecution, was already to be found at Rome and made suppli¬
cation to Christ, the Judge of all men, even on behalf of her enemies and
persecutors.'®®

6. Therefore, when Otho, who had waded through riot and slaughter to
the purple after the death of Galba and Piso at Rome, learnt soon afterwards
that Vitellius had been declared emperor in Gaul by the German legions.

106 Orosius’s date is three years awry. Galba, the governor of Hither Spain, proclaimed
himself emperor in Cartagena at the beginning of April 821 At/C/AD 68. There is no mention
in Orosius’s account of Vindex’s previous rising in Gaul which set in motion the events that
led to the fall of Nero.

107 L. Calpumius Piso Frugi Licianus, a distant descendent of Pompey who was adopted
by Galba on 10 January AD 69. Otho murdered him and Galba in Rome on 15 January AD 69.

108 Otho proclaimed himself emperor on 15 January AD 69, Vitellius, the governor of
Lower Germany, on 2 January AD 69. Vespasian, whom Nero had placed in command of
suppressing the Jewish revolt, made his claim to the purple first in Alexandria on 1 July AD 69
and was soon after hailed as emperor by his troops in Syria.

109 cf. Matthew 5.44 and Luke 6.28, 6.35.

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he began a civil war. He first engaged Vitellius’s generals in three small
encounters: one in the Alps, one near Placentia, and a third near a place
which is called Castores, from which he emerged victorious But after he
heard that his troops had been defeated in a fourth battle near Bedriacum, he
took his own life three months after he had begun his reign.

7. The victorious Vitellius entered Rome where, while performing many
cruel and vile acts and heaping opprobrium on human nature through his
incredible gluttony, after learning about Vespasian, he first tried to abdicate;
then, after some hangers-on had bolstered his courage, he forced Sabinus,
Vespasian’s brother, who had not suspected any trouble,"^ and the other
Elavian supporters to flee to the Capitol. He then set fire to the temple. The
flames and the building’s collapse gave them all a common funeral and a
common tomb."^ 8. Abandoned, after his army defected to Vespasian, and
panicking, as the enemy was now approaching, he hid himself in a tiny
hut near the palace. To his great shame, he was dragged out and led naked
along the Via Sacra to the forum with people on all sides throwing dung
in his face. In the eighth month after he had seized the kingdom, he was
flayed at the Gemonian Stairs by a death of a thousand tiny cuts, dragged
away thence on a hook, and flung in the Tiber without being given even a
pauper’s burial.""^ 9. Vespasian’s men then turned on the Senate and people
of Rome for many days, indulging in indiscriminate slaughter and all types
of murder.

1. 825 years after the foundation of the City, after this short, but turbulent,
storm of tyrants had passed, a serene tranquillity returned under the leader¬
ship of Vespasian."®

2. Eor, to go back a little in time in my account, the Jews, who, after
Christ’s suffering, had completely lost God’s grace, on being beset by
troubles on all sides, were seduced by certain oracles on Mount Carmel

110 A close pai'aphrase of Suetonius, Otho, 9. Castores is 12 miles from Cremona; see
Tacitus, Histories, 2.24. The name suggests a rural shrine to the Dioscuri is intended.

111 16 April AD 69. Otho’s death is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2084. Bedri¬
acum lay between Cremona and Verona, and is perhaps the modem S. Lorenzo Guazzone.

112 Sabinus, Vespasian’s elder brother, was Prefect of the City at the time.

113 19 December AD 69.

114 20 December AD 69.

115 Orosius’s date is three years awry. Vespasian’s rule began in 822 Af/C/AD 69. Vespa¬
sian reigned until AD 79.

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which declared that there would rise up in Judaea leaders who would take
control of the world. As they believed that the oracle applied to themselves,
they blazed forth in rebellion, annihilating the Roman garrisons in their
country and routing the lieutenant-governor of Syria when he came with
reinforcements, capturing his eagle and killing his troops."®

3. Vespasian was despatched by Nero to deal with these matters. Among
his lieutenants he took his eldest son, Titus, and brought many powerful
legions with him to Syria. After he had captured many of the Jews’ towns
and besieged them in Jerusalem where they had gathered in large numbers
for their feast day,'" on learning of Nero’s death, he declared himself
emperor, urged on by a great number of kings and rulers. He took especial
notice of the views of the Jewish leader, Josephus, who was at that time a
prisoner in chains and had steadfastly declared, as Suetonius records,"® that
he would be freed immediately by the same man who had captured him,
but by then that man would be the emperor. Vespasian left his son, Titus,
in the camp to oversee the siege of Jerusalem, while he himself set out for
Rome via Alexandria; however, on learning of Vitellius’s death, he stayed
in Alexandria a short while."®

4 . Titus crushed the Jews in a great and long siege.He finally breached
the walls of the city, though not without heavy losses among his men, with
engines and all the other devices of war. However, it took more time and more
force to storm the inner fortifications of the temple which were defended by
a mass of priests and the leading men who had withdrawn there. 5. When it
was finally in his power, he observed its skilful construction and antiquity,
and pondered for a long time whether he ought to burn it down, as it was an
incitement for Rome’s enemies to rebel, or whether he should preserve it as
evidence of his triumph. But as the Church of God was now springing up
in abundance throughout the whole world, God decided this building now it
was exhausted from giving birth, empty, and fit for no good purpose, ought to

116 The revolt broke out in AD 66. The governor killed was G. Cestius Gallus. This
material is drawn from Suetonius, Vespasian, 4. Tacitus, Histories, 2.78, also notes that Mount
Carmel was the site of an oracle. The consensus view in antiquity was that the oracle referred
to Vespasian.

117 i.e. the Feast of the Passover. This detail is probably drawn in a confused fashion from
Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2086. Oddly, Orosius does not use Jerome’s point that divine justice
arranged for the Jews to be besieged at the same of time of the year that they had crucified
Christ.

118 Suetonius, 5.

119 Taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2085.

120 Jerusalem was captured in AD 70.

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be removed. 6. So Titus, after being hailed as a victorious commander by his
troops, fired and demolished the temple at Jerusalem. It had endured 1,102
years from its first foundation down to the day of its final destruction.*^' Titus
then levelled all the town-walls to the ground. 7. Cornelius and Suetonius
say that 600,000 Jews were killed in this war.'^^ Josephus, a Jew himself
who had been a commander in the war and earned Vespasian’s pardon and
friendship because he had predicted that he would become emperor, writes
that 111,000 Jews perished either in the fighting or through famine.What
remained of them suffered various plights and were scattered throughout the
world - the story goes that they numbered up to 90,000.

8. The emperors Vespasian and Titus entered the City, leading a magnifi¬
cent triumph for their war against the Jews. A father and son riding in the
same triumphal chariot, bringing home their glorious victory over those
who had opposed the Father and Son - this was a beautiful spectacle which
had never previously been seen by any man in the 320 triumphs which had
been celebrated up to that time from the foundation of the City.'^''

9 . These two, now that all wars and sedition, both at home and abroad,
had been ended, immediately proclaimed peace throughout the world and
decreed that Janus of the two faces be kept behind closed doors for only the
sixth time since the foundation of the City;'^^ for it was just that the same
honour was paid to the avenging of the Lord’s suffering as had been given
to His birth.

10 . After this, the Roman state greatly expanded without any trouble
or wars. Achaea, Lycia, Rhodes, Byzantium, Samos, Thrace, Cilicia, and
Commagene were at this time reduced to the status of provinces for the first
time and obeyed the Romans’ judges and laws.'^’

11 . In the ninth year of Vespasian’s reign, three cities in Cyprus were
struck by an earthquake and a great plague broke out at Rome.'^*

121 This time span is taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2088.

122 Cornelius is Tacitus, Histories, 5.13; Suetonius gives no figures.

123 Orosius has taken Josephus’s comments via Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2086.

124 Orosius’s account of the destruction of Jerusalem was to have a profound impact on the
medieval and eaiJy modern mind; see Hook (1988) and Lupher (2003) 35-42.

125 See7.3.7-8.

126 Orosius is drawing a parallel with the beginning of Augustus’s reign, see 6.22.1.

127 This bloodless expansion parallels Orosius’s account of the bloodless expansion in the
early Julio-Claudian period. The list of conquests is drawn from Suetonius, Vespasian, 8, but
is also found in Eutropius, 7.19, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2090. The first four areas lost
their ‘free’ status, the latter four were client kingdoms that were absorbed into the empire.

128 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2093.

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12 . In this ninth year of his reign, Vespasian died of dysentery at his villa
in the Sabine country.

13 . 828 years after the foundation of the City, Titus, if we exclude Otho
and Vitellius from the ranks of the emperors, became the seventh man to
rule after Augustus, ruling for two years after Vespasian.'^® His rule was
so peaceful that it is said that he spilt absolutely no one’s blood while
governing the state. 14 . It was then, however, that a fire suddenly broke
out at Rome and burnt down the majority of its public buildings. We are also
told that the summit of Mount Bebius broke asunder and poured out great
fires, destroying the neighbouring regions along with their towns and inhab¬
itants in torrents of flame.Titus, to the great grief of all, died of disease in
the same villa where his father had died.

1 . 830 years after the foundation of the City, Titus’s brother, Domitian,
succeeded his brother as the eighth ruler of the kingdom after Augustus.
Eor fifteen years his cruelty, which gradually scaled every level of crime,
finally reached the stage where he dared to uproot the Christian church,
which was now firmly established throughout the world, issuing edicts
everywhere that enjoined the cruellest persecution.'^"^ 2 . He fell into such
a state of pride that he commanded that he be called, be described, and be
worshipped as men’s master and their god.'^^ He killed the noblest in the
Senate out of both envy and at the same time greed. Some he murdered
openly, others he thrust into exile, giving commands that they be cut down

129 24 June AD 79.

130 A striking contradiction. At 7.9.1, Orosius states that Vespasian began his reign in 825
AUC, and at 7.9.12 that he ruled for nine years. Therefore the date given here is impossible.
Titus’s rule began in 832 AUC!AD 79.

131 cf. Eutropius, 7.21.

132 A reference to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii, Hercu¬
laneum, and Stabia on 24 August AD 79. Orosius, following Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2095,
calls Vesuvius Bebius. The information about the fire at Rome is also drawn from Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2096.

133 Orosius’s date is four years awry. Domitian began to rule in 834 At/C/AD 81. Domitian
ruled until AD 96.

134 The idea of Domitian’s rake’s progress is found in Eutropius, 7.23.1, but Orosius
changes its culmination to his persecution of Christians. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2107,
and Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 3.17, for Domitian as the second persecutor of Christians
after Nero.

135 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2107.

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there.His intemperate lust drove him to perpetrate whatever acts he had
been able to imagine. He built many public buildings in the City, funding
them from his destruction of the Roman people’s wealth.'^’

3. The war he waged through his lieutenants against the Germans'^* and
Dacians'^® was equally damaging to the state. For while he ripped apart
the Senate and people in the City, abroad his enemies continually slaugh¬
tered his badly led armies. 4 . 1 would have described at great length the
great battles fought by the Dacians’ king, Diurpanus, against the Roman
commander Fuscus*"'® and the extent of the disasters that befell Rome, had
not Cornelius Tacitus, who recorded these events with the uttermost care,
stated that Sallustius Crispus and a vast number of other writers had decided
not to speak about the numbers killed and that he himself had decided that
this was the best policy.*'^' Domitian, however, full of the most disgusting
conceit, held a triumph for killing his own legionaries, on the pretext that
it was for defeating his enemies.5. Driven wild by the pride that made
him wish to be worshipped as a god, he was the first emperor after Nero
to command that Christians be persecuted. At this time too the blessed
apostle John was exiled to the island of Patmos.*"'^ 6. It was also decreed
that among the Jews the race of David be sought out by harsh torture and
bloody inquisitions, and killed. He did this because he hated, but believed
the holy prophets, thinking that someone who would be able to take his
kingdom might still come from the seed of David.

7. However, straight after this, Domitian was cruelly murdered by his
servants in the Palace. His body was carried out in a pauper’s coffin by the
public pall-bearers and given an ignominious burial.''^®

136 An embroidered version of Eutropius, 7.23.2. See also Suetonius, Domitian, 10.

137 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2105, where there is no mention of financial harm.

138 A campaign against the Chatti in AD 83.

139 AD 86-89.

140 Cornelius Fuscus, Domitian’s Praetorian Prefect, who was killed at the beginning of
the war. Diurpamus is normally known as Decebalus (ruled AD 87-106).

141 An odd comment which presumably refers to a lost section of Tacitus’s Histories,
though conceivably it is a reference to Tacitus, Annals, 1.6, where Sallustius Crispus, the great
nephew of the historian Sallust, warns Tiberius at the beginning of his reign not to make state
secrets public.

142 Held in AD 89. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2106, merely states that Domitian celebrated
a triumph over the Dacians and Germans.

143 The persecution and detail about St John the Divine ai‘e drawn from Jerome, Chronicle,
A Abr. 2110.

144 Drawn in an extremely abbreviated fashion from Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.19.

145 Domitian’s persecution of the Jews and his death are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A

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1. In the 846* year after the foundation of the City, though Eutropius says
this year was the 850* year, Nerva, who was already a very old man, was
made emperor by Petronius, the Praetorian Prefect, and the eunuch Parthe-
nius, Domitian’s murderer.''*^ He was the ninth emperor after Augustus and
adopted Trajan as the heir to his kingdom. In this, he truly looked to his
troubled country’s interests with the aid of God’s foresight.2. With his
very first edict, he recalled all those who had been exiled. It was in this way
that the apostle John, freed by the general amnesty, returned to Ephesus.
After a year of his rule had passed, Nerva fell sick and died.*'**

1. 847 years after the foundation of the City, Trajan, a Spaniard by race, took
the rudder of state from Nerva, becoming the tenth emperor after Augustus,
and ruled for nineteen years.*''®

2. He put on the insignia of power at Agrippina, a city in Gaul,'^" and
soon afterwards reduced Germany across the Rhine to its old status. He
subjugated many tribes across the Danube, made the regions lying beyond
the Euphrates and Tigris into provinces, and occupied Seleucia, Ctesiphon,
and Babylon.'^' 3. Nevertheless, he was the second emperor after Nero to be

Abr. 2112. Orosius’s chronology here underlines that the emperor’s death was a direct conse¬
quence of his persecution of the Christians.

146 Eutropius, 8.1.1. In fact neither date given is correct, Nerva came to the purple in 849
AUC = AD 96. Nerva’s old age and the names of the two kingmakers are found in Eutropius,
but the information that Pathenius was a eunuch is an addition by Orosius.

147 Trajan was adopted by Nerva on 27 October AD 97. The old emperor may have been
helped as much by the mutinous mood of Trajan and the size and proximity of army that he
commanded (he was governor of Upper Germany at the time) as he was by God to adopt
Trajan. Orosius is clearly proud that Trajan came from Spain; however, the notion of divine
aid is not his own but taken from Eutropius, 8.1.2.

148 The return of the exiles and John is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2113. Nerva
died on 7 January AD 98.

149 Orosius’s chronology is four years awry. Trajan became emperor in 851 At/C/AD 98. He
was bom in Italica, the modem Santiponce, just outside Seville. It is normally thought that he
was descended from Roman settler stock whose ancestors came from Tuder. However, Orosius’s
adjective Hispanus means rather native Spaniard. This was also the view of Cassius Dio who
describes him as ‘alloethnes’, i.e. a non-Roman. For a discussion of this issue, see Canto (2003).

150 Colonia Agrippinensis, the modern Cologne.

151 This potted account of Trajan’s career draws heavily on Eutropius, 8.2-3; Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2117—2118 has also been used as a source. Trajan stabilised the German

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ensnared by the error of persecuting Christians, ordering that they be sought
out everywhere and forced to sacrifice to idols. His command was that those
who refused be killed, and very many were killed. On being advised by
the report of Pliny Secundus, who had been chosen as prosecutor out of
Rome’s judges, that these men, apart from confessing their belief in Christ
and holding small, harmless meetings, did nothing contrary to Roman law
and that because of their unobjectionable faith none of them thought that
death was a serious or frightening matter, the emperor straightaway issued
some more merciful rescripts to mitigate his decree.

4 . But in Rome immediately after these events, the Golden House,
which Nero had built by spending all his private funds along with those
of the state, was suddenly burnt down to make it known that although this
particular persecution had been begun by another, its punishment fell most
fiercely on the buildings of the man who had begun the persecutions and so
on their true author.

5. Four cities in Asia, Elea, Myrina, Pitane, and Cyme along with two in
Greece, those of the Opuntii and Oriti,'®'* were destroyed by an earthquake
that also ruined three cities in Galatia. At Rome, the Pantheon was struck by
lightning and burnt down, while an earthquake in Antioch almost levelled
the entire city.'^’

limes, but did not recreate the old trans-Rhine province as Orosius implies. The Dacians were
defeated in two wars in AD 101-02 and AD 105-06. Trajan’s campaigns into Paithia in AD
114-17 resulted in the creation of the short-lived provinces of Armenia, Mesopotamia and
Assyria.

152 A reference to Pliny, Letters, 10.96-97. Pliny was governor of Bithynia and Pontus at
the time, not, as Orosius thinks, an official concerned with persecuting Christians. His weak
understanding of the letters suggests that he had never seen a copy of them at first hand, but is
probably relying on the account given by Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 3.33. When dealing
with the letters, Orosius has again altered the dates that he found in Jerome to fit his prefen'ed
pattern of natural disasters following persecution rather than preceding it. Here the date of
Pliny’s correspondence given by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2124 (=AD 110), has been pushed
back in time in order that all the natural disasters listed should follow Trajan’s persecution and
hence demonstrate God’s just vengeance.

153 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2120.

154 Opus, the chief city of the Opuntian Locrians, is perhaps the modern Kardhenitza in
modem Greece. Oricum, a port in Illyricum, is the modern Erikha in Albania.

155 The destmction of the Golden House is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2120.
Orosius tries nobly to absolve his compatriot and hero, Trajan, from the blame of initiating a
persecution in his account. The earthquake in Asia and Greece is taken from Jerome, Chron¬
icle, A Abr. 2121. Orosius disingenuously elides this with the earthquake in Galatia to make
God’s vengeance seem the greater. In fact, Jerome dates the earthquake in Galatia and the
burning of the Pantheon six years after the Asian earthquake, A Abr. 2127 (= AD 113), and

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6. Then, the Jews in a wild rage hlazed forth in an incredible rebellion
that extended across different parts of the world all at the same time. They
waged a brutal campaign throughout all Libya against its inhabitants, slaugh¬
tering its peasants and leaving it so desolate that had the emperor Hadrian
not afterwards brought in men from other lands and settled them there in
colonies,it would have remained an empty land, as those living there had
been completely wiped out. 7. Then the Jews’ bloodstained sedition threw
Egypt, Gyrene, and the Thebaid into chaos. In Alexandria, however, they
were brought to battle, defeated, and annihilated. In Mesopotamia too, the
emperor ordered that war be waged on the rebels and so many thousands
of them were slaughtered and killed. 8. Nevertheless, they razed the city of
Salamis in Cyprus to the ground and killed all its inhabitants. Trajan died of
dysentery, according to some accounts, in the city of Seleucia in Isauria.*^^

1. 867 years after the foundation of the City, Hadrian, Trajan’s cousin,
became the 11th emperor after Augustus, and ruled for twenty-one years.

2. Through the agency of Quadratus, a student of the apostles, Aristides of
Athens, a man full of faith and wisdom, and his lieutenant-governor, Serenus
Granius, he was taught by, and learned from, books written about the Chris¬
tian religion. He therefore decreed in a letter to Minucius Eundanus, the
governor of Asia, that no one could condemn a Christian without charging
them of a crime or presenting proof.

3. He was immediately proclaimed Lather of his Country in the Senate,

gives a third date for the earthquake at Antioch, A Abr. 2130.

156 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2137.

157 The details of the Jewish rebellion are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2130-2132. The account of Trajan’s death in AD 117 is taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2132. Here Orosius may have misread Jerome who mentions Seleucia as the possible scene
of Trajan’s death, but prefers, correctly, Selennutis which was renamed Traianopolis in the
deceased emperor’s honour.

158 Orosius’s date is three years awry. Hadrian became emperor in 870 AUCf AD 117. He
ruled until AD 138.

159 Orosius’s account of Christianity and Hadrian is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2142. Quadratus and Aristides were Christians and said to have presented Hadrian with apolo¬
gies when he visited Athens to participate in the Eleusinian mysteries; see also Jerome, Letters,
70 and Famous Men {De Viris Illustribus), 19 and 20. Jerome notes that Granius wrote a letter
of protest about the execution of Christians to Hadrian. Orosius, while not stating it as a fact,
goes beyond Jerome and implies that Granius was a Christian. The disputed rescript of Hadrian
to Fundanus is preserved (in Latin) with the F‘ Apology of Justin Martyr.

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something without precedent, and his wife was proclaimed Augusta.
Hadrian ruled his country with the justest of laws and waged war on, and
defeated, the Sauromatae.'*’' 4. He also hnally exterminated and subdued the
Jews, who, roused up by troubles caused by their own crimes, were at that
time laying waste to the province of Palestine which had once belonged to
them. In this way, Hadrian avenged the Christians whom the Jews, under
their leader Cocheba, had tortured because they would not join them in
opposing Rome. 5. The emperor decreed that no Jew be allowed to enter
Jerusalem and that only Christians be permitted in the city. He rebuilt its
walls to their former glory and named it Aelia after his own name.'®

1. 888 years after the foundation of the City, Antoninus, who was known
as the Pious, was made the 12th emperor after Augustus. He governed the
state so peacefully and respectfully for almost twenty-three years along with
his sons, Aurelius and Lucius, that he was deservedly called ‘the Pious’
and ‘Father of his Country’.'®^ 2. It was in his reign that the haeresiarch
Valentinus and Marcion’s teacher, Cerdo, came to Rome. However, the
philosopher Justin gave Antoninus the book he had written in support of
the Christian religion and made him look favourably on Christian men.
Antoninus was taken ill and died 12 miles from the City.'®''

160 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2144. Orosius has arranged his text to imply, falsely, that
Hadrian’s acclamation as pater patriae was a consequence of his letter to Fundanus. It is diffi¬
cult to see why this event is described as ‘without precedent’, ultra morem maiorum, as the
title was commonly held by emperors, being first awai'ded to the emperor Augustus in 2 BC.

161 A reference to Hadrian’s successful defence against an incursion on the Danube
frontier in AD 117.

162 The account of the Bar Cochba rebellion of AD 132-35, including the note about
Jewish persecution of Christians, is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2149-2152. After
the suppression of the rebellion, Hadrian refounded Jerusalem as a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina.
Jerome makes no mention, however, of Jews being banned from Jemsalem or Christians being
allowed there. Orosius’s text is deliberately opaque. It probably means that only Christians out
of the Jews and Christians were allowed into Jerusalem, but could be taken as meaning that the
city was given to the Christians.

163 The comment about Marcus’s co-rule with his sons, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus
whom he adopted on the orders of Hadrian, is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2153.
That concerning Antoninus’s acclamation as pater patriae is taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr. 2155. However, Orosius’s chronology is again three years awry; Antoninus Pius became
emperor in 891 AUC/AD 138.

164 Valentinus was a Gnostic heretic; a Coptic version of his Gospel of Truth has been

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1. 911 years after the foundation of the City, Marcus Antoninus Verus
became the 13th man to assume the throne after Augustus. He ruled with
his brother Aurelius Commodus and remained in power for nineteen years.
These men were the first to oversee the state with each having equal power.'®

2. They then waged a war against the Parthians with admirable courage and
good fortune. Annius Antoninus Verus set out to prosecute this war. The
Parthians’ king, Vologaesus, made a serious incursion into the empire and
laid waste to Armenia, Cappadocia, and Syria.'® 3. But Antoninus, after
great deeds were performed by his generals who acted with great vigour,
captured Seleucia in Assyria, a town which lies on the banks of the river
Hydaspes, along with 400,000 of the enemy. He celebrated the triumph for
this victory over Parthia with his brother, but not long afterwards, while he
was sitting with his brother in a carriage, he was afflicted by the onset of the
disease which the Greeks call apoplexy and choked to death.'"’

4. On Verus’s death, Marcus Antoninus was left in sole charge of the state.
During the Parthian War, the third set of persecutions after those of Nero
was carried out at Marcus’s command and fell heavily on the Christians in

found at Nag Hammadi. Both Irenaeus, Against Heresy {Adversus Haereses), and Tertullian,
Against the supporters ofValentinian {Adversus Valentinianos), provide an orthodox perspec¬
tive on his work. For discussions of Valentinus’s theology, see Bermejo (1998) and Thomassen
(2005). Marcion regarded the god of the Old Testament as the evil demiurge and thus discarded
the Old Testament and a substantial part of the New. Irenaeus, Against Heresy, 1.27 and 3.4,
states that Cerdo was his mentor. See Salter-Williams (1984) for an in-depth discussion of
Marcion and his impact. The philosopher, so described by Jerome, Justin is Justin Martyr (c.
AD 100-65). His First Apology is dedicated to Antoninus Pius, though there is no proof that
the emperor ever received or read the work. Orosius’s details ai‘e taken from Jerome, Chronicle,
A Abr 2156, 2157. The details of Antoninus’s death are taken from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr
2176.

165 Marcus Antoninus Verus is known to history as Marcus Aurelius. Orosius’s chronology
remains three years awry: Marcus Aurelius became emperor in AD 161/914 AUC. Orosius
has drawn his information from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2177, but appears to have misread
his source. Jerome speaks of ‘Marcus Antoninus qui et Verus et Lucius Aurelius Commodus’.
Orosius has read qui et as ‘who was also called’ when in fact it means ‘who along with’. Verus
is Lucius Verus, Marcus Aurelius’s co-emperor from AD 161-69.

166 Vologaeses IV, AD 148-92. His incursions are noted by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2179.

167 The account of this war, which lasted from AD 162-66, and of Verus’s death (for which
see also Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2185) draw heavily on Eutropius, 8.10. Statius Priscus
recovered Armenia in AD 163, while Seleucia, which lies 18 miles south of Baghdad in Iraq,
was captured and sacked by G. Avidius Cassius in AD 164. The joint triumph was held in AD
166. Verus died of a stroke near Altinum while returning from the German front.

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Asia and Gaul. Many of the saints were crowned with martyrdom. 5. There
followed a plague which swept over most of Rome’s provinces and such a
great pestilence laid waste to all of Italy that farms, fields, and towns every¬
where were stripped of their tillers and inhabitants and turned into ruins and
woodland.'®*

6. It is said that the Roman army and all its legions stationed far and
wide in their winter quarters lost so many men that the Marcomannic war
which broke out at this time could not be have been waged without the fresh
levy of troops which Marcus Antoninus held at Camuntium for three years
running.'®^

7. A great amount of evidence makes it absolutely clear that this war was
guided by divine providence. The most important piece is a letter written
by this sober and serious emperor. 8. Eor when an innumerable host of
savage barbarian tribes, that is the Marcomanni, Quadi, Vandals, Sarmatians,
Sueves, and almost all of Germany, rose in rebellion, the army advanced up
to the frontier with the Quadi and were surrounded by the enemy. They then
found themselves in more immediate danger from their lack of water than
the enemy. 9. When some soldiers, showing their great constancy of faith,
suddenly poured forth their prayers, openly calling on the name of Christ,
the rain fell with such violence that it more than made good the Romans’
supplies at no danger to themselves,'^® but the constant lightning bolts terri¬
fied the barbarians, especially as many of them were killed, and forced them
to flee. 10. As they turned their backs in flight, the Romans fell on them
and slaughtered them to a man, winning with a few untrained troops, but
also with the mighty aid of Christ, a glorious victory that outshone almost
all those of old. 11. The majority of authors say that Antoninus’s report, in
which he admits that it was the invocation of Christ’s name by his Christian
soldiers that remedied his lack of water and won the victory, is still extant
to this day.'^'

168 The persecutions are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abn 2183, the heavily embroi¬
dered account of the plague from Jerome’s entry for the following yeai\

169 Carnuntium, more correctly Carnuntum, is the modern Petronell in Austria which lies
on the south side of the Danube. Orosius has drawn his account from Eutropius, 8.12-13, but
has misinterpreted his source - Eutropius makes no mention of levies, but simply says that
Marcus worked hard here for three years. The Marcomanni were a German tribe living in
what is now Bohemia. The First Marcomannic War lasted from AD 166-73. For an attempted
modern reconstruction of this war, accounts of which in our ancient sources are highly
confused, see Birley (1987) ch. 8.

170 cf. 4.17.9.

171 The ‘rain miracle’ is depicted on the Column of Marcus Aurelius. The incident

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12. This same Antoninus made his son, Commodus, ruler of the kingdom
with himd’^ He remitted the tribute, even that which was outstanding from
the past, in all the provinces and at the same time ordered that every forged
document dealing with taxation be heaped together in the forum and burnt.
He also tempered Rome’s harsher laws with new rulings.He finally died,
after suddenly being taken ill in Pannonia.*’"'

1. 930 years after the foundation of the City, Lucius Antonins Commodus
succeeded his father to the kingdom, the 14th to do so after Augustus,
and remained in power for thirteen years.2. He waged a successful war
against the Germans. In all else, however, he became depraved through his
disgraceful extravagance and obscene behaviour.'’*’ He often fought as a
gladiator in their training schools and frequently pitted himself against wild
beasts in the arena.'” He killed a great number of senators, especially those
whom he saw were outstanding by birth or ability. 3. The City’s punishment
followed in the wake of the king’s wrong-doing. The Capitol was struck by
lightning which started a fire-storm that gripped and burned down, along
with some buildings adjacent to it, the library which their ancestors had
taken great care to build.'’® After this, another fire then broke out at Rome

produced a great deal of legendary material, including an ‘official’ version which held that
the rain came in response to the emperor’s prayers to pagan gods; see Dio, 71.8 and SHA
Marcus Aurelius, 24.4. Orosius’s statement that the emperor explicitly thanked the Christians
in his army for bringing about the miracle is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2189. See
also Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 5.5. For a detailed discussion of the rain miracle and the
Marcomannic Wars in general, see Kovacs (2009)

172 In AD 176, see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2193.

173 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2194.

174 Orosius presumably had no knowledge of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations which
contain scathing criticisms of Christianity, as his picture of the emperor is generally favourable.

175 Orosius’s chronology remains three years awry: Commodus’s rule began in 933 AUC/
AD 180.

176 A reference to the end of the Second Marcomannic War in AD 180. Commodus ended
the wai‘ that had begun three years earlier at the price of abandoning newly conquered Roman
territory. He held a triumph over the Marcomanni at the end of AD 180. Commodus’s decision
was probably a wise one, but Orosius, perhaps misled by the notice of a triumph, seems to think
that the emperor was more successful than was in fact the case. SHA Commodus, 13.5, is more
generous than Orosius, and speaks of triumphs against the Moors and Dacians.

177 This potted account of Commodus draws heavily on Eutropius, 8.15.

178 This librai'y is known only from Orosius and his source, Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2204.

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and razed to the ground the temple of Vesta, the Palace, and a good part of
the City.'’® 4. Commodus, who incommoded everyone, is said to have been
strangled to death in the Vestilian Hall.'*° Even when he was alive, he was
condemned as an enemy of mankind.'*'

5. After Commodus’s reign, the elderly Helvius Pertinax was made
Augustus’s 15th successor by the Senate. He was killed after ruling for six
months by the criminal acts of the lawyer Julian.'*’

6. After killing Pertinax, Julian seized power, but soon he was defeated
at the Mulvian Bridge in a civil war and killed by Severus in the seventh
month of his reign. Pertinax and Julian’s rule took up a year.

1. 944 years after the foundation of the City, Severus, a Tripolitanian of
African descent from the town of Lepcis, who wanted to be called Pertinax
after the name of the emperor whose death he had avenged, took over the
ruler-less empire as Augustus’s 16th successor, and held power for seventeen
years.'** 2. He had a naturally vicious character and was always troubled by
a multiplicity of wars, but nevertheless ruled the state with great courage,
though also with great brutality. At Cyzicus, he defeated and killed Pescen-
nius Niger, who had aspired to establish himself as a usurper in Egypt and
Syria.'*'' 3. He also used the sword to coerce the Jews and Samaritans when
they tried to rebel, and conquered the Parthians, Arabs, and Adiabeni.'** He

179 The fires took place in AD 188 and 189; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2201.

180 Here, surprisingly, disaster, and, by implication, divine vengeance, follows the persecu¬
tion of a pagan group. The details of this, the disasters which followed it, and Commodus’s
death are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2207-2208. Vestilian is Jerome’s error for
Vectilian. The Vectilian villa was a gladiatorial school to which Commodus had transferred his
palace; see SHA Commodus 16.3.

181 Orosius has drawn this sentiment from Eutropius, but awkwardly reversed it. Eutropius
reads: ‘even when he was dead, he was condemned as an enemy of the human race’.

182 M. Didius Julianus, who famously purchased the Roman Empire from the Praetorian
Guard for a donative of 6,250 denariii per soldier.

183 Orosius’s chronology is two years awry. Severus’s mle began in 946 At/C/AD 193.
These details are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2210, which places the beginning of
Severus’s rule in AD 196.

184 Pescennius proclaimed himself emperor in May AD 193. Orosius has garbled his
account of this coup. It was Pescennius’s deputy, Asellius Aemilianus, who was defeated at
Cyzicus. Pescennius was defeated soon afterwards at Issus.

185 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2213 (Jews and Samaritans), 2214 (Parthians, Arabs, the
Adiabeni).

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subjected the Christians to their fourth persecution after that of Nero, and a
great number of the saints in a wide number of provinces were crowned as
martyrs.'*® 5. Divine vengeance followed on the heels of Severus’s impious
presumption against Christians and the Church of God. Eor Severus was at
once snatched, or rather dragged back, from Syria to Gaul to fight a third
civil war. 6. Eor he had already fought one in Italy against Julian, another in
Syria against Pescennius, and now Clodius Albinus, who had connived in
the murder of Pertinax with Julian and proclaimed himself Caesar in Gaul,
started a third. This war spilt much Roman blood on both sides. However,
Albinus was defeated and killed near Lyons.'*’

7. Severus, though the victor, was forced to go to the British provinces
as almost all his allies there had rebelled.'** On recovering part of the island
after frequent, heavy, and severe fighting, he decided to divide this from the
other unconquered tribes with a rampart. He therefore built a great ditch
and stout rampart fortified with many towers across from one sea to the
other - a distance of 132 miles.'** 8. He died of disease in Britain in the
town ofYork.'*" He left two sons, Bassianus and Geta. Geta was condemned
as an enemy of the state and put to death,'*' while Bassianus obtained the
kingdom and took the name Antoninus.

186 An embroidered version of Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2218.

187 Caesai* here is the title of the subordinate mler under the emperor whose own title was
Augustus. Severus recognised Albinus as Caesar in AD 194, which allowed him to deal with
Niger without having to fight a war on two fronts. However, it is highly unlikely that he ever
intended to allow Albinus to continue in such a role. Albinus’s army was defeated by Severus
on 19 February AD 197.

188 Orosius has drawn his information about Albinus and the British campaigns from
Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2221. He has assumed, and Jerome’s terse text perhaps implies, that
Severus’s British campaigns immediately followed on after his defeat of Albinus in AD 197,
whereas in fact he did not enter the province until AD 208. Orosius would have been eager to
make such an error, as it would strengthen the notion that these wars were divine vengeance
for the emperor’s persecution of the church.

189 The information on Hadrian’s Wall is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2221.
Severus made extensive repairs to the wall from AD 205 onwards. Orosius, following Jerome
and Eutropius, 8.19, appears to be completely unaware of who built the wall in the first place.
The figure of 132 miles given is incoiTect: the wall was 76 Roman miles long. It has been
suggested that the original figure intended was 32 and that it referred to the western section of
the wall running from the River Irthing to the Solway Firth. However, a more elegant solution is
to assume that manuscript corruption has taken place with CXXXII being written for LXXXII
which would yield a figure close to the correct length of the wall.

190 Severus died in AD 211. Orosius has drawn his information about York from Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2225.

191 In AD 212.

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1. 962 years after the foundation of the City, Aurelius Antoninus Bassianus,
namely Caracalla, became the 17th emperor after Augustus and remained
in power for just under seven years.2. He was a harsher man than his
father, and more intemperate than any man in his lusts, even marrying his
own stepmother, Julia. He died while fighting against the Parthians after he
had been surrounded between Edessa and Carrhae.'^^

3. After Caracalla, Ophilus Macrinus, who had been his praetorian prefect,
was, along with his son, Diadumen, the 18th man after Augustus to seize
power. However, a year later he was killed in a soldiers’ mutiny at Archelais.'*'*

4. 970 years after the foundation of the City, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
became the 19th man after Augustus to gain power and held it for four
years. 5. This man was a priest in the temple of Heliogabal and left nothing
to remember him by, save the infamy of his perversions, outrages, and all
kinds of obscenity. He was killed at Rome, along with his mother, in a
military uprising.

6. 974 years after the foundation of the City, Aurelius Alexander was,
by the wishes of both the Senate and the troops, created the 20th emperor
after Augustus.'*'’ He ruled for thirteen years, rightly obtaining a reputation
for justice. 7. His mother, Mamea, was a Christian and took pains to be
taught by the presbyter Origen.'** Alexander at once launched an expedition

192 Orosius’s chronology is two yeai's awry: Caracalla’s reign began in 964At/C/AD 211.

193 Orosius’s account of Caracalla is drawn mainly from Eutropius, 8.20, and that of his
death from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abn 2233. SHA Caracalla, 7, tells us that Caracalla was
murdered while relieving himself on the road between Carrhae and Edessa. Orosius has
suppressed the building of the Baths of Cai'acalla which is mentioned by both Eutropius and
Jerome.

194 Orosius’s account ofMacrinus is drawn from Eutropius, 8.21, and Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abn 2234. Achelais is the modem Khirbat al-Bayudat in Palestine. SHA Macrinus, 10.3, places
the site of Macrinus’s death, along with that of his son, in an unnamed village in Bithynia.

195 Antoninus is normally known as Elagabalus/Heliogabalus. Orosius’s chronology is one
year in error: Elagabalus began to rule in 971 At/C/AD 218. Orosius’s account is informed
by Eutropius, 8.22, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abn 2235-2238 (where Elagabalus’s accession
date is correct). The cult of Elagabal was an Eastern orgiastic religion centred on a betyl (an
aniconic sacred stone) that Elagabalus had brought to Rome from the cult’s home, Emesa, the
modem Homs in Syria. His mother was Julia Sohaemias, the daughter of Julia Maesa, who was
the sister of Julia Domna, the wife of Septimius Severus.

196 Normally known as Severus Alexander. Orosius’s chronology is one year out: Severus
Alexander’s reign began in 975 Af/C/AD 222.

197 Normally Julia Mamaea. Like Julia Sohaemias, she was a daughter of Julia Maesa. The
assertion that Mamaea was a pupil of Origen is drawn from Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History,

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against the Persians and defeated their king, Xerxes, in a great battle.'®® He
employed Ulpian as his advisor and showed the utmost moderation in ruling
the state. He was, however, killed in a mutiny near Mainz.'®®

1. 987 years after the foundation of the City, Maximin was made the 2P'
emperor after Augustus by the army, though the Senate opposed him. After
he had waged a successful war in Germany, he carried out the fifth persecu¬
tion of Christians after that of Nero. 2. But straightaway, that is to say in the
third year of his reign, he was killed at Aquileia by Pupienus, putting an end
both to his persecutions and his life. He had specifically persecuted priests
and clergymen, that is to say the teachers of doctrine, either because the
family of Alexander whom he had succeeded and Alexander’s mother were
Christians, or because he had a special hatred of the presbyter Origen.™

3. 991 years after the foundation of the City, Gordian was made the 22"“'
emperor after Augustus and stayed in this office for six years, for Maximin’s
killer, Pupienus, and his brother, Balbinus, who had seized power were
killed soon afterwards in the Palace.^"' 4. Though still a boy, Gordian when
he was about to set off to the east to wage war against the Parthians, opened,
according to Eutropius, the gates of Janus which I cannot recall any writer
saying that anyone had closed after the time of Vespasian and Titus, while

6.21. Orosius amplifies the comment that he found in Rufinus that Mamaea was a ‘devout’
woman into the positive assertion that she was a Christian. Overall, this is a curious detail, as
Origen was not well thought of by the church of the fifth century — see Augustine, City of God,
11.23 and 21.17. Presumably, Orosius thought any hint of imperial sponsorship of Christianity
outweighed the awkwardness of Origen’s problematic orthodoxy.

198 The campaign began in AD 231. ‘Xerxes’ is Ardachir I, the founder of the Sassanid
dynasty.

199 Orosius’s account of Alexander Severus is informed by Eutropius, 8.18.6-8, and
Jerome, Chronicle, AAbn 2238-2251. Ulpian was the great lawyer of the third century, much
of whose work is preseiwed in Justinian’s Digest. Alexander Severus made him Praetorian
Prefect in AD 222. However, the following year he was lynched by the Praetorian Guard with
whom he commanded no respect. For a general account of Ulpian, see Honore (2002).

200 Orosius’s chronology is one year out: Maximin ‘the Thracian’ began to rule in 988
AUC/AD 235. Orosius’s account is drawn mainly from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2252-2254,
though his German war is derived from Eutropius, 9.1. The speculations on why Maximin
persecuted priests ai‘e Orosius’s own.

201 This is Gordian III; Orosius truncates the political squabble that spawned the short¬
lived emperors Gordian I and II. His source is Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2255. The date for
Gordian’s accession is correct.

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Cornelius Tacitus tells us that Vespasian opened them in the second year
of his reign.5. Gordian, after successfully hghting some great battles
against the Parthians, was treacherously killed by his own men not far from
Circessus on the Euphrates.

1. 997 years after the foundation of the City, Philip was made the 23’^“^
emperor after Augustus. He made his son, Philip, his co-ruler and reigned
for seven years.2. He was the first of all the emperors to be a Christian,
and after two years of his rule the 1,000'*' year after the foundation of Rome
was completed. So it came to pass that this most pre-eminent of all her
previous birthdays was celebrated with magnihcent games by a Christian
emperor.3. There can be no doubt that Philip dedicated the gratitude and
honour expressed in this great thanksgiving to Christ and the church, as no
author speaks of him going up to the Capitol and sacrihcing victims there
as was the custom.^“ 4. Nevertheless, the two Philips died in a mutiny and
through Decius’s treachery, though in different places.

202 For Gordian III, see Eutropius, 9.2.2, and also SHA Gordian, 26.3. The comments by
Tacitus are in a lost part of his Histories.

203 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.2251 and Eutropius, 9.2.3. Circessus is modem Qarqisiya
which lies at the junction of the Euphrates and Khabur rivers.

204 Orosius’s date for Philip’s accession is correct. Philip ‘the Arab’ ruled from AD
244—49, his son, Philip II, from AD 247-49. Orosius suppresses the view found in many of our
sources that Philip the Arab was involved in the murder of the Gordians as it is not germane
to his purpose to have the first Christian emperor reach the purple by treachery. See Zosimus,
1.18; Zonaras, 12.18, and SHA Gordian, 29.2-30.9.

205 Perhaps an odd comment, given Orosius’s hostility to the games. Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr. 2262, gives more detail, speaking of ‘innumerable’ animals killed in the Circus Maximus,
games celebrated in the Campus Martius, and three days and nights of theatrical performances.

206 This is a striking claim and not made by other Latin authors. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical
History, 6.34, claims Philip was a Christian, but says nothing about Rome’s millennium. For
Orosius, the link he has made shows that Rome and its empire are an integral part of God’s
plan. Orosius suppresses Eutropius’s, 9.3, comment that the two Philips were deified after their
deaths, which would have destroyed his case. See Pohlsander (1980) for a sceptical, and Shahid
(1984), for a more accepting, approach to Philip’s possible Christian beliefs.

207 Decius claimed that he was ‘forced’ to declare himself emperor by his troops and
promised to lay aside his claim on entering Italy. In fact, he met the elder Philip in battle at
Verona, where he defeated and killed him. When news of the battle spread, the Praetorian
Guard lynched the younger Philip in their ban'acks at Rome. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2267, who notes the place of death of both Philips, and Eutropius, 9.3. Orosius seems puzzled
at these Christian emperors’ fate, but offers no explanation for it.

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1. 1,004 years after the foundation of the City, Decius, who had hoth started
and finished a civil war, became, on the death of the two Philips, the 24“*
man after Augustus to seize power and retained it for three years.2. He
immediately - and in so doing revealed that this was why he had killed the
Philips - became the sixth emperor after Nero to issue death-laden edicts for
the persecution and murder of Christians, and sent very many of the saints
from their crosses to their crowns in Christ.^®^ 3. He chose his son as his
Caesar, and it was with him he was killed immediately afterwards when in
the midst of a barbarian horde.^'®

4. 1007 years after the foundation of the City, Callus Hostilian became
the 25“* man after Augustus to obtain the kingdom which he ruled for
scarcely two years along with his son, Volusian.^"

5. Vengeance for the defiling of Christians now made itself manifest.
And wherever Decius’s edict to cast down churches had reached, there fell
a plague of inconceivable ills. There was hardly a province of the Roman
Empire, a city, or a home that was not seized and emptied of its inhabitants
by this universal plague. 6. Callus and Volusian, whose rule was distin¬
guished only by this disaster, were killed while fighting a civil war against
the pretender Aemilian. Aemilian had embarked on the third month of his
usurpation when he too was killed.^^^

208 G. Messius Quintus Decius ‘Traianus’. Orosius’s chronology is two years awry. Decius
began to reign in 1002 AUC/AT) 249.

209 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2268. Jerome states here that Decius launched his perse¬
cution because he hated the Philips. This had possibly led Orosius to conclude that the
Philips were Christians. Decius’s persecution, AD 249-51, is normally accepted as the first
widespread, systematic persecution of Christianity. For a discussion of Decius’s religious
policy, see Pohlsander (1986) and Rives (1999).

210 Decius’s Caesar was Herennius Etruscus. The two died while fighting the Goths at
Arbito in Dobiuja; Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2268. The pagan historian Zosimus, 1.23, is full
of praise for Decius whom he sees as attempting to rectify problems on the frontier created by
Philip’s inactivity and who he asserts was killed by Gallus Hostilian’s treachery.

211 Orosius’s chronology is three years awry; Hostilian and Volusian’s reign began in 1004
Af/C/AD 251.

212 For the plague, see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2269. The comment that Gallus and
Volusian’s reign was memorable only for the plague is drawn from Eutropius, 9.5. The two
were killed in August AD 253. The plague is also recorded by Zosimus, 1.26, who also,
1.27-28, speaks of major incursions into the empire in both Europe and Asia. The material on
Aemilian is found in Eutropius, 9.6, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2270.

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1. 1,010 years after the foundation of the City, two emperors, the 26'*'
since Augustus, were created: Valerian was hailed Augustus hy his army
in Raetia, while at Rome Gallienus was made Caesar by the Senate.^’^
Gallienus remained in power for a miserable hfteen years, during which
the human race slowly recovered from the severe plague, one worse and
more long-lasting than is normally the case. Wickedness blithely calls forth
its own punishment, and though impiety, when scourged, feels the whip,
being hard of heart she does not perceive by Whom she is being whipped.

2. In order to avoid going over the points I have already made: after Decius
persecuted Christians, the whole Roman Empire was tormented by a great
plague. However, iniquity, ensnared, to her own loss, by her perverse belief,
lied to herself that this plague was of the common type, and that the death
which came from these diseases was simply in accordance with nature and
not a punishment at all.

3. Once again, therefore, and soon after, Rome provoked God’s anger by
her sinful actions and was to receive a lashing whose effects she was forced
to remember for some time. Valerian as soon as he seized power became the
seventh emperor after Nero to order that Christians be tortured into idolatry
and that those who refused be killed, and so the blood of the saints poured
far and wide over the breadth of the Romans’ kingdom. 4. Straightaway
the author of this vile decree. Valerian, was captured by Sapor, king of the
Persians, and the emperor of the Roman people grew old as the lowliest of
slaves among the Persians, condemned as long as he lived to perform the
shameful office of helping the king to mount his horse, not with his hand,
but with his back as he lay on the ground.^*'*

5. Gallienus was terrihed by God’s manifest judgment, and, troubled
by his colleague’s wretched fate, restored peace to the empire’s churches

213 Orosius’s chronology is four years awiy; Valerian and Gallienus were proclaimed
emperors in 1006 At/C/AD 253. See also Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2271 (incorrectly dating
these events to AD 254) and Eutropius, 9.7.

214 Valerian’s persecution took place in AD 257-58; he was captured in AD 260. His
captor was Shapur I, ‘The Great’ (AD 241-72) of Sassanid Persia who commemorated his
triumph on a rock relief carving at Behistun in Iran. Orosius’s main source for the persecution
and Valerian’s demise is Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2274, though the details of the emper¬
or’s slavery may be drawn from Lactantius, On the Deaths of the Persecutors {De Mortibus
Persecutorum), 5.2-3. Valerian’s demise is also noted by Zosimus, 1.36, who attacks his loose
morals and effeminacy, points omitted by Orosius.

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by way of panic-stricken reparation.However, the incarceration of one
impious man, albeit that it was forever and of a particularly vile kind, did
not compensate for the wrong or provide sufficient recompense for the
torture of so many thousands of the saints. The blood of the just cried out
to God to be avenged in the selfsame land where it had been spilled. 6. It
was required by just judgment that not only the individual author of the
decree be punished, but it was also just that those who had carried it out,
been informers and accusers, judges or jurymen, or, finally, all those who
had given assent to this most unjust cruelty, even silently - for God knows
men’s secrets - the greatest body of whom were to be found throughout all
the provinces, be enveloped in the same stroke of vengeance.

Therefore with God’s consent, suddenly and everywhere the tribes
left around the edge of the empire for this purpose broke their chains and
invaded all Rome’s domains. 7. The Germans crossed the Alps, Raetia,
and Italy, arriving at Ravenna; the Alamanni ranged through the Gallic
provinces until they too crossed into Italy; Greece, Macedonia, Pontus, and
Asia were wiped out by a deluge of Goths; Dacia across the Danube was lost
forever;^'® the Quadi and Sarmatians ransacked the Pannonian provinces;
the furthest-flung German tribes took hold of Spain and stripped it bare;^*’
the Parthians seized Mesopotamia and drained Syria of all its wealth. 8.
In various provinces, small, poor villages lying in the ruins of great cities
still give evidence of what was suffered and preserve memories of their
past names. Among these, we too in Spain can show our town of Tarra¬
gona to reconcile us to our recent troubles.^'* 9. Then, in case some part of
the Roman body politic should escape from this dismemberment, usurpers
conspired within, civil wars commenced, and everywhere rivers of Roman
blood were spilt as Roman and barbarian vented their rage. The wrath of

215 Gallienus issued an edict of tolerance in AD 260.

216 In fact, Dacia was not abandoned until the reign of Aurelian (AD 270-75).

217 The Frankish invasion of Spain took place in AD 267.

218 This list of invasions is found in Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2278-2280 and Eutropius,
9.8.2. Zosimus, 1.30-37, also describes the incursions into the empire in detail. Both Jerome
and Eutropius state that Gallienus started his reign well, but lapsed into debauchery. However,
Orosius is unwilling to attack Gallienus as he passed an edict of tolerance and so is forced to
see the invasions as punishment for Valerian’s persecution. The use of ‘our’ to describe Tarra¬
gona (understandably mentioned both by Jerome and Eutropius as it was the provincial capital
of Hither Spain, but with no ‘our’) has been seen as marking the town as Orosius’s birth-place,
but merely marks his Spanish, not his Catalan, sympathies. The ‘recent troubles’ is probably
a reference to the sack of Rome, but may relate to Orosius’s enforced exile in Africa. In all
events, the intention of the text is to demonstrate that the troubles of the present are nothing
compared to those of the past.

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God, however, swiftly turned to mercy and held that merely beginning their
chastisement was better than meting out punishment in full measure.

10. First, therefore, Genuus, who had usurped the purple, was killed at
Myrsa.^'^ Postumus proclaimed himself emperor in Gaul which proved of
great benefit to the state, for he ruled with great courage and moderation
for ten years, driving out the enemies who had taken power,^^“ and restoring
the lost provinces to their old state of affairs; he was nevertheless killed
when his troops mutinied.11. Aemilian was suppressed while plotting
revolution at Mainz.After Postumus’s death, Marius usurped the purple
in the same area, but was killed immediately.Then, of their own free
will, the Gauls made Victorinus emperor, but he was killed soon after.^^'*
12. He was succeeded by the governor of Aquitania, Tetricus, who endured
many mutinies from his troops.In the east, the Persians were defeated and
driven back by a band of peasants rallied together by a man called Odenatus.
He managed to defend Syria, recover Mesopotamia, and the peasants of
Syria marched in triumph with Odenatus as far as Ctesiphon.^^® 13. Galli-
enus was killed when he abandoned the duties of state and gave himself up
to his lusts at Milan.

219 Normally Ingenuus, who attempted a usurpation, probably in AD 258. Myrsa is the
modem Eszek in Turkey.

220 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2284, who also lists the other Gallic emperors Victorinus
and Tetricus. See also Eutropius, 9.9.1.

221 Given his dislike of civil strife, Orosius has a surprisingly positive view of Postumus
(AD 260-69). This may simply reflect the opinions found in Eutropius, 9.9.1, but could also
be because Spain, along with Gaul and Britain, formed part of his breakaway Gallic Empire.
This would also account for the interest shown in Postumus’s successors seen in the rest of the
chapter. The Gallic Empire was hnally re-absorbed into the Roman state in AD 274.

222 Normally Laelian; see Eutropius 9.9.1.

223 According to Eutropius, 9.9.2, Marius ruled for only two days. However, as coins were
struck in his name, this seems unduly pessimistic.

224 See Eutropius, 9.9.3, though Orosius uses none of the uncomplimentary material found
there. Victorinus ruled the Gallic Empire from AD 269 to AD 271.

225 Eutropius, 9.10. In AD 274, Tetricus handed back control of the Gallic Empire to the
emperor at Rome, Aurelian.

226 Orosius’s main source is Jerome, A Abr. Chronicle, 2282, where we are told that
Odenatus was a town councillor of Palmyra; see also Eutropius, 9.10 and Zosimus, 1.39. In c.
AD 250 Odenatus made Palmyra an independent kingdom, though one closely allied to Rome,
receiving the title corrector totius Orientis, ‘supervisor of the whole East’ from the emperor
Gallienus. He launched two attacks on the Persians, one in AD 263, the other in AD 266/7. For
a general discussion of Palmyra and its relations with Rome, see Stoneman (1992).

227 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2285 and Eutropius, 9.11. Orosius chooses this point to
accuse Gallienus of debauchery, but both Jerome and Eutropius place his neglect of duty earlier

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1. 1,025 years after the foundation of the City, Claudius, who had the
approval of the Senate, became the 28“’ man to take power.^^* He immedi¬
ately waged war on the Goths who had been laying waste to Macedonia
and Illyricum for hfteen years and annihilated them with great slaughter.
The Senate awarded him a golden shield to hang in the senate-house and a
statue, also made of gold, to be placed on the Capitol. However, before he
had hnished the second year of his reign, he succumbed to disease and died
at Sirmium.^^®

2. On the death of Claudius, his brother, Quintillus, was made emperor
by the army. He was a man of outstanding moderation and the only man
who could be preferred to his brother, but after seventeen days of his reign
he was killed.^^°

3. 1,027 years after the foundation of the City, Aurelian became the
29'“ emperor and ruled for five years and six months.He was of man of
outstanding military ability, 4. who undertook a campaign on the Danube,
shattered the power of the Goths in a series of great battles, and restored
the writ of Rome to her old frontiers.Then he turned east, and brought
Zenobia back under control, more by threatening to wage war on her, than
by actually doing so. After her husband, Odenatus, had been killed, she
had begun to take over the province of Syria, which he had recaptured,
for herself.5. He had no difficulty in defeating Tetricus who was unable

and make it the cause of the barbarian invasions. In contrast to Orosius’s debauched emperor,
Zosimus, 1.40, has Gallienus murdered in a palace conspiracy when returning from the wars
in the Balkans. See also SHA The Two Gallieni, 14. In the following chapter, the author of the
SHA biography records that the troops of the day thought that Gallienus ‘had been useful and
indispensable to them, courageous and competent’.

228 Although giving no warning in his narrative, Orosius now goes back in time to deal
with the emperors at Rome as opposed to those of the Gallic Empire.

229 Claudius II Gothicus. Orosius’s chronology is four years awry. Claudius came to the
purple in 1021 AUC/AD 268. Orosius’s sources are Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2286 (who
places Claudius’s accession incon'ectly in 1022 At/C/AD 272) and Eutropius, 9.11. Claudius
defeated the Goths at Naissus, the modern Nis in Serbia. According to Zosimus, 1.43, 50,000
Goths were killed. Claudius’s golden shield parallels the clipeum virtutis awarded to Augustus
by the Senate in 27 BC. Sirmium is near the modern Mitrovica in Serbia.

230 Orosius repeats virtually verbatim Eutropius’s, 9.12, comments on Quintillus.

231 Orosius’s chronology is four years awry. Aurelian’s rule began in 1023 AUC/AD 270.

232 Orosius suppresses, or is ignorant of, the fact that it was in Aurelian’s reign that the
province of Dacia across the Danube was abandoned.

233 This is the Odenatus of 7.22.12. For Aurelian’s campaigns against Zenobia, see Zosimus,
1.50-60. For modem discussions of the queen, see Stoneman (1992) and Southern (2009).

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to hold out against the mutinies of his own soldiers in Gaul and wrote to
Aurelian saying: free me, invincible as you are, from these troubles, and
in this way betrayed his own army.^^'' Aurelian therefore held a triumph in
glory as the man who had recovered both the east and the north. He also
surrounded the city of Rome with stronger walls. 6. But in the end, after he
became the eighth emperor after Nero to order that Christians be persecuted,
a thunderbolt fell in front of him to the great terror of those standing nearby,
and soon afterwards he was killed while making a journey.

1. 1,032 years after the foundation of the City, Tacitus became the 30* man
to obtain imperial power. He was killed in Pontus in the sixth month of his
reign. After him came Elorian, who had similar luck with his reign - he was
killed after three months in Tarsus.^^®

2. 1,033 years after the foundation of the City, Probus became the 3P‘
man to rule the kingdom and reigned for six years and four months.After
many fierce battles, he destroyed his enemies and completely liberated the
Gallic provinces that had been occupied by barbarians.^^* 3. He then fought
two extremely bloody civil wars: one in the east in which he crushed and
captured the usurper Satuminus, and another in which he defeated and killed
Proculus and Bonosus in fierce fighting near Cologne. He himself was killed
at Sirmium in an iron tower during a mutiny of his troops.

234 Taken, including the quotation of Virgil, Aeneid, 6.365, from Eutropius, 9.13.1. See
also Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2289, and 7.22.12 above.

235 Aurelian’s double triumph, walls, persecution, the portent of his death, and death are
all drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2290-2292. Aurelian was assassinated at Caenophru-
rium, the modern Eregli in Turkey, in AD 275. Orosius has suppressed Jerome’s, Chronicle,
A Abr. 2291, notice that Aurelian built a temple to the sun god and is generally favourable to
him, suppressing Eutropius’s, 9.13.1 and 9.14, comments on his brutality, and presenting him
as behaving badly only at the end of his reign. He also suppresses Eutropius’s, 9.15.2, notice of
his deification. For modern discussions of the emperor, see Watson (1999) and White (2004).

236 Orosius’s chronology is four years awry; Tacitus began to rule in 1028 At/C/AD 275,
Florian’s brief rule was in 1029 AUC/AD 276. Orosius’s source for these two emperors is
Eutropius, 9.16 and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2293.

237 Orosius’s chronology is four years awry; Probus began to rule in 1029 AUC/AD 276.
Orosius also fails to mention that Probus was declared emperor in the east by his troops while
Elorian was still emperor at Rome.

238 Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2294. See also SHA Probus, 13-14.

239 For the rebellions, see SHA Probus 18. Orosius’s main source for Probus is Eutropius,
9.17. Eutropius also refers to an ‘iron tower’. Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2299, is perhaps more

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4. 1,039 years after the foundation of the City, Cams from Narbonensis
became the 32"‘* man to rule the empire and held on to power for two years.
After he had made his sons, Carinus and Numerian, joint rulers, he fought
a Parthian war in which, after capturing two of the Parthians’ finest cities,
Coche and Ctesiphon, he was strack by lightning and killed in his camp by
the Tigris.^'*® Numerian, who was with his father, was treacherously killed
by his father-in-law, Aper, while returning to Rome.^'*'

25242

1.1,041 years after the foundation of the City, the army chose Diocletian
as the 33'^'* emperor and he held power for twenty years. Immediately he
obtained full power, he killed Numerian’s killer, Aper, with his own hand.
Then, through great effort in a most difficult war, he overcame Carinus who
was living a disgraceful life in Dalmatia where Cams had left him as Caesar.

2. After this, Amandus and Aelian gathered together a band of peasants whom
they called the Bagaudae and sparked off damaging disturbances in Gaul.
Diocletian made Maximian, who was surnamed ‘the Herculean’,Caesar,
and despatched him to the Gallic provinces. Maximian, with his soldier’s
training, easily put down this unskilled and ill-disciplined peasant band.^'*^

correct when he talks of ‘a tower called the iron tower’. The tower is not mentioned by either
the author of SHA or Zosimus.

240 Orosius’s account of Cams and his sons is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2300.
Both he and Jerome are incorrect about the date of Carus’s accession which was in 1035 AUC/
AD 282. Orosius is four years out placing it in 1039 AUC/AD 286 and Jerome in 1038 AUC!
AD 285. Coche and Ctesiphon are also paired by Gregory Nazianzus, Discourses against
Julian {Orationes in Julium), 2. Ctesiphon is the modern Al-Madain which lies some 20 miles
south-east of Baghdad. Its importance in this period can be seen from the still extant remains
of the palace built by Shapur I, the Tagh-e-Kasra. Coche, a refoundation of Seleucia-on-the-
Tigris, lay opposite it. The lightning bolt is also mentioned by the author of SHA, Lives of
Carus, Carinus, and Numerian 8-9.

241 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2301, and Eutropius, 9.18.2. It has been suggested that
Aper was innocent of this crime; see Bird (1976).

242 Sections 1-12 of this chapter follow Eutropius, 9.20-25, closely.

243 Orosius’s chronology is four yeai's awiy. Diocletian was proclaimed emperor by his
army at Nicomedia on 20 November 1037 AUC!AD 284. He ruled until AD 305. Orosius’s
account of his rise is drawn from Eutropius, 9.19-9.20.1, and Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2301
(who erroneously places his accession in 1040 Af/C/AD 287).

244 Maximianus Herculius.

245 ‘Bagaudae’ is a Celtic word for ‘vagabonds’; see Sanchez-Leon (1996). Orosius’s
account is taken from Eutropius, 9.20.3. Orosius has drawn his account from Jerome, Chron¬
icle, A Abr. 2303.

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3. Then one Carausius, who, while of very lowly birth, was of great
intelligence and ability, after being posted to watch over the Ocean’s shores
which were at that time infested with Franks and Saxons, began to act in
a way that was more pernicious than profitable to the state. His policy of
not returning any part of the plunder seized by these brigands to its owners
but keeping it entirely for himself aroused the suspicion that he allowed
his enemies to make their incursions into his domains through a delib¬
erate policy of negligence. For this reason, Maximian ordered him to be
put to death. He then usurped the purple and seized control of the British
provinces.^'*®

4 . So at that time rumblings of unforeseen trouble could be heard all
round the frontiers of the Roman Empire. Carausius had rebelled in the
British provinces, Achilles in Egypt,^"^’ while the Quinquegentians^'** plagued
Africa, and even Narseus, the king of the Persians, was waging war in the
east.^"^* 5. Troubled by this danger, Diocletian promoted Maximian Herculius
from Caesar to Augustus and chose Constantins and Maximian Galerius as
Caesars.^^” Constantins took Maximian Herculius’s step-daughter, Theodora,
as his wife, by whom he fathered six sons who were the brothers of Constantine.

6. Carausius, after laying claim to Britain, bravely held on to it for
seven years, but finally was treacherously killed by his associate Allectus,^’'
who kept hold of the island for three years after he had snatched it from
Carausius. He was crushed by Asclepiodotus, the Praetorian Prefect, who
recovered Britain ten years after it had been lost.^®^ 7. The Caesar Constan-

246 Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2305. Carausius began his usurpation late in AD 286.

247 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2306. Achilles was a barbarian corrector, probably a
Saracen, who set up Domitius Domitianus as a puppet emperor in Egypt in AD 297.

248 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2305. The Quinquegentians were a tribe of Mauretania
Caesariensis.

249 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2305. Narseus is Narseh, the son of Sapor I, AD 293-302. He
broke the treaty made with Rome by his predecessor, Vahram II, invading Armenia, Osrhoene,
and Syria in AD 297.

250 Orosius has abbreviated these events to increase his reader’s sense of danger. Maximian
was made Augustus in AD 286, but the Caesars were appointed seven years later in AD 293.
The Constantins here is Constantins Chlorus, the father of Constantine the Great.

251 Allectus was Carausius’s rationalis, i.e. his chief hnancial official. The assassination
took place in AD 293. Orosius is surprisingly sympathetic to Carausius, perhaps betraying his
western origins. For a modem discussion of Carausius and Allectus, see Casey (1995).

252 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2316. His absence from Jerome’s note may
explain why Orosius does not mention Constantins Chlorus’s role in this campaign, despite the
fact that it was widely publicised at the time, with Constantins being described as the ‘restorer
of eternal light’ to Britain. See, in particular, the gold medallion struck in Trier and found near

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tius was defeated by the Alamanni in his first battle in Gaul, lost his army,
and was only spirited to safety himself with difficulty. His second battle,
however, provided him with a satisfactory victory, for in only a few hours
60,000 of the Alamanni are said to have been slaughtered. 8. Meanwhile,
the Augustus Maximian conquered the Quinquegentians in Africa.^^^ Then
Diocletian captured and killed Achilles after besieging him in Alexandria
for eight months. He was not, however, restrained in his triumph, for he gave
Alexandria up to be plundered and soiled all of Egypt with his proscrip¬
tions and slaughter.9. After fighting two battles against Narseus, Galerius
Maximian met him in a third between Callinicus and Carrhae, where he
was defeated.After losing his army, he fled to Diocletian, who gave him
a most arrogant reception; it is said that he was forced to run in front of
Diocletian’s chariot for several miles while clad in his imperial robes.
Nevertheless, he used this insult to hone his courage and in this way was
able to sharpen his wits by grinding away the rust brought on by regal
arrogance. He soon gathered together troops from all over Illyricum and
Moesia, swiftly returned to face his foe, and defeated Narseus through his
superior tactics and manpower.11. After annihilating the Persians’ troops
and putting Narseus to flight, Galerius entered his camp and captured his
wives, sisters, and children, seizing as plunder a vast number of Persian
gems and taking the vast majority of the Persian nobility prisoner.On his
return to Mesopotamia, he was received with great honour by Diocletian.
12. After this, these two commanders fought a bitter war against the Carpi
and Basternae.^’® They then defeated the Sarmatians, scattering a great
number of their prisoners throughout the outposts of the Roman world.

13. Meanwhile, Diocletian in the east and Maximian Herculius in the
west ordered that churches be destroyed and Christians be attacked and
killed in the ninth persecution after that of Nero. This persecution lasted
longer and was more brutal than almost all the previous ones. For ten

Arras bearing this legend and depicting Constantins entering London. It is now on display in
the Musee des Beaux Arts in Arras.

253 Maximian campaigned in Africa between AD 296 and 298.

254 The siege took place in the winter of AD 296/7. Orosius has drawn his information
from Jerome, Chronicle, AAbr. 2314.

255 AD 298.

256 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2317. See Seston (1946).

257 In AD 298.

258 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2318.

259 In fact, these campaigns predate those just mentioned by Orosius. See Jerome, Chron¬
icle, A Abr. 2311, who notes that the two tribes were translated into Roman territory.

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years there was no end to the burning of churches, the proscription of
the innocent, and the slaughter of martyrs.14. An earthquake in Syria
followed in which many thousands of men in Tyre and Sidon were killed by
falling buildings.^'’' In the second year of the persecution, Diocletian forced
Maximian against his will jointly to lay aside the purple and their power,
leaving younger men in charge of the state while they retired into private
life. And so on the same day, Diocletian laid down his imperial power and
its trappings at Nicomedia, while Maximian did the same at Milan.^®^

15. The Augusti Galerius and Constantins were the first to divide the
Roman Empire into two parts. Galerius Maximian received Illyricum, Asia,
and the East; Constantins, Italy, Africa, Spain, and the Gallic provinces.
But Constantins was a most easy-going individual, content to rule merely
Gaul and Spain, and he handed over the rest of his portion to Galerius.^*’^ 16.
Galerius picked two Caesars, Maximin, whom he appointed to be in charge
of the East, and Severus, to whom he entrusted Italy, while he himself stayed
in Illyricum.^*'’ The Augustus Constantins, a most mild and civil man, then
died in Britain, leaving his son Constantine, whom he had fathered by his
concubine Helena, as emperor of the Gallic provinces.^®®

1. 1,061 years after the foundation of the City, Constantine became the 34'*'
man to steer the ship of state, taking its rudder from his father and holding
on to it for thirty-one prosperous years.^*'*'

260 For a discussion of this persecution, see Williams (1985) ch. 14 and MacMullen (1969)
ch. 1.

261 The persecution and earthquake are drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2320. This
persecution began in AD 303 and lasted until Constantine’s edict of Milan in AD 313.

262 The two abdicated on 1 May AD 305. Orosius’s account is a much-abbreviated version
of Eutropius, 9.27.1-2.

263 An abbreviated version of Eutropius, 10.1. However, while Eutropius mentions the
division of the Roman world, it is Orosius who makes the point that this was the first time that
this had happened.

264 Maximin Dai'a, Galerius’s nephew, and Flavius Valerius Severus. Orosius’s account
draws on Eutropius, 10.2.1.

265 Orosius, unlike Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2322, suppresses the fact that Constantine
usurped power at York after his father’s death. Jerome, like Orosius, names Helena, but Orosi¬
us’s main source, Eutropius, 10.2.2, gives no name to Constantine’s mother, merely noting that
he was born ‘from an obscure marriage’.

266 Orosius’s chronology is two years awiy. Constantine became emperor in 1059 AUCI
AD306.

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2. Now all of a sudden someone will come up and dance, leaping round
me, saying, ‘Aha, long-awaited one, you have come^^^ at last into our snares!
Here we were waiting for you to go too far! Here you have stumbled and
we have seized you! Here we caught you in your confusion! Up to this
point we have home with you, as, in a rather forced and sly way, you have
linked together the fortuitous changes that have happened in these Christian
times with the vengeance worked on the Christians’ behalf. 3. While you
did this, troubled by these plausible parallels, we grew pale with fear, like
men who were ignorant of the secrets of heaven. But now our Maximian has
cleared out the mummery of your stories and shone forth as an unassailable
pillar of our old faith.^®* 4. Eor ten years, as even you yourself admit, your
churches were demolished, and Christians were wracked with torture and
their numbers depleted by death throughout the whole world. We have your
clear testimony that no previous persecution had been as serious or as long.
5. Yet, behold, amid these good, peaceful times, the unexpected felicity of
the very emperors who performed these deeds; there was no famine at home
or any plague, and no wars abroad save those they wished to wage - wars
in which they were able to train their forces rather than endanger them. 6.
Moreover, something as yet unknown among the human race happened - a
group of kings ruling at the same time exercised joint rule, tolerating one
another, showing great harmony, and holding a common power, which now,
as it had never done before, looked to the common good. 7. And after this,
those great emperors and persecutors did something that up to that time men
had never known. They set aside their office and peacefully retired as private
citizens: the thing which men judge to be the most blessed and highest
reward of a good life. This, then, was what the authors of the persecution
obtained as their prize so to speak, at a time when the persecution that they
had kindled was raging throughout the world. 8. Or are you going to assert
that the good fortune of this epoch was a punishment and try to terrify us
with that too?’

9. To such objections I would humbly reply that, girt with an over¬
whelming concern to be pious, I am warning them with the truth, not
frightening them with falsehood. The Church of Christ suffered ten perse¬
cutions from Nero to Maximian.^*® Nine times vengeance, as I have put it.

267 A quotation from Virgil, Aeneid, 2.283.

268 ‘Pillar’ here is columna, which is used in the account of Samson bringing down the
Philistines’ palace; see Judges 16.26-31. It is hard not to see this as a deliberate piece of
sai'casm on Orosius’s part.

269 The number of persecutions suffered by the Church was an issue for debate within the

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or disaster, as they would not deny, followed in their wake. I will not argue
about words and debate whether the things both of us call disasters were due
punishment or unfortunate changes of circumstance. 10. These poor blind
folk think that my argument falters at the tenth persecution, not realising
that the vengeance that fell on them was all the greater for going unper¬
ceived. Eor the impious man is scourged yet does not feel the whip.^’“ When
this is expounded, given the simple truth of the matter, they will confess,
though unwillingly, that their greatest wounds have come from their greatest
punishment - that given for Maximian’s persecution. It is over these wounds
that they grieve even now, and grieve over to such a degree that they cry out
and provoke me to shout back in return that I am concerned to find a way
to silence them.

1. In the first book I showed how Pompeius Trogus and Cornelius Tacitus
had recorded, though not fully, and how our Moses, a trustworthy source
even according to them, had explained in a trustworthy and ample way that
the Egyptians and their king were troubled by ten terrible plagues when
they summoned back the people of God, who were intent on serving and
obeying God, to mud and straw in order to hinder their devotion.^’' 2. Then,
that overcome by the violence of their sufferings,™ the Egyptians not only
forced the Jews to hurry on their way, but even loaded them down with
vessels made of gold and silver that belonged to themselves. And that after
this, heedless of their punishment, lusting to plunder what did not belong to
them, and, above all, hating this foreign religion, they pursued the innocent
Jews with all their might, but, while doing so, were finally all sucked into
the Red Sea and drowned. I recall and return to this story now, which, even
if it is not believed through faith, can be proved to have occurred by its
outcome, because these things were our examples}^^ 3. Both people who
suffered were the people of the One God, and both upheld the same cause.
The synagogue of the Israelites was in thrall to the Egyptians, the Church

Church itself. Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle, 2.28.31, believed that there had been nine perse¬
cutions and a final tenth would come with the arrival of the Antichrist. Orosius adds a further
temporal persecution and this version became the standard for Western Christendom.

270 An echo of Jeremiah 5.3.

271 1.10.1-18.

272 i.e the ten plagues.

273 1 Corinthians 10.6.

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of the Christians to the Romans, and the Egyptians were persecutors and
the Romans too were persecutors. Ten refusals were sent to Moses in Egypt,
ten edicts against the Christ were proclaimed at Rome. There, the Egyptians
suffered from plagues of different sorts; here, the Romans suffered from
different sorts of disasters.

4.1 shall compare these plagues to one another in as far as their different
forms allow comparison. There, the first reproof was that blood appeared
everywhere, dripping from wells and running in rivers; here, the hrst
plague came under Nero, when the blood of the dying which had either
been corrupted by disease in the City or spilt in wars around the world, was
to be found everywhere.^’'^ 5. There, the second plague was of croaking,
leaping frogs which penetrated every innermost place, reducing the inhabit¬
ants to the verge of starvation and exile; here, the second punishment which
happened under Domitian, produced similar effects, as the shameless,
unchecked forays of his flunkeys and soldiers, carried out under the orders
of this cruellest of princes, reduced almost all the citizens of Rome to a state
of want, and scattered them into exile. 6. There, the third trouble was that of
the sciniphnes: extremely small and extremely vicious flies which are often
accustomed in the middle of summer to gather together in thick, buzzing
clouds in filthy places and then worm their way between men’s hair and
beasts’ bristles, inflicting stinging bites on them.^^^ In the same way, here,
the third plague under Trajan roused up the Jews who, after they had been
completely scattered across the world, lived so quietly that it was as if they
did not exist. However, then all of them were suddenly aroused in anger
and raged against those among whom they lived across the entire world. In
addition to this, many great cities were ruined after being cast down by the
frequent earthquakes which happened at that time.^’* 7. There, the fourth
plague was of dog-flies, which are truly the children of filth and the worms’
mothers; here, the fourth plague in the time of Marcus Antoninus was of
the same sort. Disease spread to most of the provinces and also brought a
death of rotting in filth and worms to the whole of Italy, including the City
of Rome, along with the Roman army stationed in its winter quarters along
the extensive frontiers of the empire. 8. There, the fifth reproof brought
about the sudden death of flocks and draught animals; similarly, here, the
fifth act of vengeance in the time of the persecutor Severus brought about,

274 See 7.7.11 above.

275 See 1.10.10.

276 The earthquakes rather spoil Orosius’s parallel with the plague of flies, but he simply
cannot resist mentioning them.

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through frequent outbreaks of civil war, a weakening of the state’s very
vitals and workhorses: namely the people of the provinces and the troops
of the legions. 9. There, the sixth source of trouble was suppurating blisters
and oozing ulcers; here, in the same way, the sixth punishment which came
after the persecution of Maximin, who ordered bishops and priests, that is
to say the leaders of churches, be attacked and slaughtered while leaving
the people alone, breathed forth its oft-swelling anger and hatred in the
slaughter not of the common people, but in the wounding and killing of
leading, powerful men of the state.10. There, the plague ranked as the
seventh was the hail that condensed out of the air to such degree that it could
kill men, animals and crops; here, a similar seventh plague happened in the
reign of Gallus and Volusian who soon succeeded the persecutor Decius on
his death. Disease came forth from the corrupted air and poured over all
the bounds of Rome’s kingdom from east to west, killing almost the whole
race of men and beasts - poys’ning the Standing Lakes and Pools Impure
11. There, the eighth thing that made the Egyptians repent was the locusts
which rose up on all sides, colonising, consuming, and covering everything;
here, equally the eighth punishment was the tribes who were roused up
on every side to overturn the Roman world, laying all the provinces waste
with their arson and slaughter. 12. There, the ninth disturbance was the
darkness which lasted for days and was so thick that you could almost touch
it. It threatened danger more than caused it. Here, the ninth reproof was the
same - a terrible and terrifying thunderbolt fell in a horrifying whirlwind
at Aurelian’s feet as he was in the act of proclaiming his persecution. This
thunderbolt showed what so powerful an Avenger could do, when there was
so great a call for vengeance, were He not both merciful and restrained.
Nevertheless, within six months of this happening, three emperors, namely
Aurelian, Tacitus, and Florian, were killed in succession in diverse ways.
13. There, hnally the tenth and last plague of all was the death of everyone’s
hrst-born sons; here, this tenth, that is to say final, punishment was no less
than the destruction of all the idols which were their first creation and their
first love.

14. There, the king saw, felt, and feared the power of God, and, because
of this, allowed the people of God to go free; here, the king saw, felt, and
believed in the power of God and because of this allowed the people of God

277 Orosius struggles to keep a parallel here, but with little success. In the end, he tries
by using adjectives and verbs for the anger of civil war which could be applied to blisters or
buboes.

278 Virgil, Georgies, 3.481. The succeeding line is quoted at 5.21.6.

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their freedom. There, the people of God were never again dragged back into
slavery; here, never, after these troubles, have the people of God been forced
into idolatry. There, the precious vessels of the Egyptians were given to the
Hebrews; here, the most glorious pagan temples became Christian churches.
15.1 certainly think, as I have already said, that this must be stated - namely
that just as eternal damnation fell upon the Egyptians when the sea was
poured over them as they set out to pursue the Hebrews whom they had let
go after the ten plagues, so there remains for us at some time in the future
as we go freely on our way a persecution from the gentiles, until we cross
the Red Sea, that is the hre of judgment, with Our Lord Jesus Christ Himself
as our leader and judge.^^® 16. Truly, these men, who have taken the place
of the Egyptians, will rage against and persecute Christians with terrible
tortures in the moment of power that is allowed to them. But it is also true
that all these enemies of Christ, along with their king, the Antichrist, are
destined to damnation for forever and to burn in everlasting torment, falling
into the lake of eternal fire which, because it is hidden with billows of thick
smoke, is entered without being seen.

1. On the death, as I have recorded, of Constantins in Britain, Constan¬
tine was made emperor. With the exception of Philip, whose short rule as
a Christian emperor seems to me to have occurred simply so that Rome’s
millennium could be said to have happened under the rule of Christ rather
than that of idols, Constantine was the first Christian emperor. 2. After
Constantine, however, all those made emperor up to the present day have
always been Christians, with the exception of Julian whose cursed life left
him, they say, while he was devising blasphemies.

3. This is that slow, but sure, punishment of the pagans. Because of it,
they utter madness while they are sane; because of it, though they have no
bodily wounds, they suffer the goad; because of it, while they laugh, they
are groaning in pain; because of it, while they live, they are dying; because

279 Orosius’s parallels were a commonly held Christian interpretation of persecution, as
was the belief, based on the Egyptians’ pursuit of the Israelites, that there would be only one
further persecution which would be led by the Antichrist just before the second coming. Both
of these views are denounced by Augustine, City of God, 18.52, who perhaps wrote in part to
answer what is written here.

280 The bulk of this account, except for the specifically Christian elements, follows closely,
but abbreviates, Eutropius, 10.2.2-10.8.

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of it, though no one persecutes them, they suffer torments in secret; because
of it, although no persecutor has subjected them to punishment, now very
few of them are left at all.^*' 4. Now I shall set out what sort of end awaited
these persecutors in whose immunity from punishment my opponents not
only glory, but even use to insult me.

5. While Constantine strained to look after the interests of the state in
the Gallic provinces, the Praetorian Guard at Rome proclaimed Herculius’s
son, Maxentius, who was at that time living as a private citizen in Lucania,
Augustus. 6. Maximian Herculius, although he had retired from the throne
into private life, still remained in public life as a persecutor. He was now
roused up by what had happened to his son, and so a man who had set aside
his legitimate power set himself up as a usurper.7. The Augustus Galerius
sent his Caesar, Severus, to Rome with an army to hght Maxentius. 8. When
he besieged the city, he was wickedly deserted and betrayed by his troops,
and killed at Ravenna as he fled. 9. Maximian Herculius, the persecutor
and former emperor turned usurper, now tried to strip his son, who had
by this time been established as emperor, of his royal robes and power.
However, the open insults and mutinous nature of the troops terrihed him,
and he set out for Gaul in order to take away power from his son-in-law,
Constantine, with whom his connection was equally treacherous. 10. After
being discovered and betrayed by his daughter, he fled towards Marseilles,
but was caught and killed.

11. After the death of Severus, Galerius made Licinius emperor.12.
He then intensified the persecution begun by Diocletian and Maximian by
issuing even harsher edicts himself. When, after ten years, he had emptied
the provinces of their populations, his breast began to rot away within and
his vitals to dissolve. In addition to the usual horrors caused by human
suffering, he began to cough up worms and often ordered his doctors, who
were unable to bear the stench, to be put to death. 13. After he was rebuked
by one doctor whose desperation had given him courage and who told him

281 A pious exaggeration in order to contrast the resilience and growth of Christianity
under persecution with the feeble nature of paganism even when not persecuted.

282 Diocletian had forced Maximian against his will to abdicate as Augustus in AD 305.
He now attempted to re-assert himself.

283 The rise of Maxentius and the demise of Severus occurred in AD 307. See Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2323.

284 Maximian in fact committed suicide at Marseilles. Constantine had manied his
daughter, Fausta, in AD 307. Maximian was killed in AD 310; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr
2324. For his failed attempt to re-assert himself, see Zosimus, 2.10-11.

285 At the Conference of Carnuntum, 11 November AD 308.

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that this was the punishment that the wrath of God had brought down on him
and so impossible for doctors to cure, he sent edicts far and wide recalling
Christians from their exile. However, he was unable to bear the agony he
was suffering and took his own life.^®®

14. At that time, therefore, the state was under the control of four
new rulers: Constantine and Maxentius, the sons of the Augusti, and the
parvenus, Licinius and Maximin. 15. Constantine gave the churches peace
after the ten years during which they had been plagued by persecutors. 16.
Then civil war broke out between Constantine and Maxentius. Maxentius’s
strength was weakened after many battles and he was finally defeated and
killed at the Mulvian Bridge.^*’ 17. Maximin, the worst inciter and perpe¬
trator of persecutions against the Christians, died at Tharsus while he was
preparing to wage civil war against Licinius.^*® 18. Licinius, overtaken by
a sudden madness, ordered that all Christians be expelled from his court,
and soon war broke out between him and Constantine.^*^ 19. Constantine
first defeated Licinius, who was his sister’s husband, in Pannonia, then
vanquished him at Cibalae^*® and, after gaining control of all of Greece,
finally forced Licinius, who had launched many unsuccessful attacks on
him by land and sea, to surrender. 20. However, because he remembered the
example set by his father-in-law, Maximian Herculius, Constantine ordered
Licinius to be killed secretly in order to stop him taking up once more to
the detriment of the state the purple that he had laid down. 21. So although
all the participants in this notorious persecution were dead, just punishment
also befell this man who had also persecuted Christians when he had had the
power to do so.^*' 22. Constantine’s sons, Crispus, and Constantine, along

286 AD 311. The nature of Galerius’s death bears a pleasing resemblance to that of Herod.
The gruesome details of his death are not found in either Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2325, or
Eutropius, 10.4.2, both of whom merely note it. Eutropius has a positive view of Galerius,
describing him, 10.2.1, as ‘a man of proven good character and great military ability’.

287 28 October AD 312. Orosius makes no mention of the vision that urged Constantine
to paint Christian symbols on his troops’ shields. The battle is noted by Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr. 2328. For Maxentius’s campaign, see Zosimus, 2.12-17. Zosimus notes that the Temple of
Fortune at Rome caught fire while Maxentius was in the city. This is not mentioned by Orosius,
probably to avoid any hint that pagan omens could convey the future accurately.

288 Tharsus is Tarsus; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2327. According to Zosimus, 2.17, the
war between Maximin and Licinius was already underway when Maximin died.

289 Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 1.4, also sees Licinius’s maltreatment of Christians as
the reason why war broke out between him and Constantine.

290 Modern Vinkovci in Croatia. The battle is noted by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2329.

291 Orosius has misread Eutropius, 10.6.1, who refers to only one battle fought on both
land and sea at Nicomedia. Orosius also takes great pains to excuse Constantine’s murder of

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with the young Licinius, who was the son of the Augustus Licinius and a
nephew of Constantine’s on his sister’s side, were made Caesars7®^

23. It was at this time that Arrius, a priest in the city of Alexandria,
strayed from the truth of the Catholic faith and established a dogma that
was to prove fatal for very many men7^^ 24. At first, he became famous,
or rather infamous, among his supporters and opponents at Alexandria
who mixed indiscriminately. He was excommunicated from the church by
Alexander who was the then bishop of this town.^^'* 25. Then, after he had
roused up into rebellion those whom he had seduced into error, a council
of 318 bishops was convened in Nicaea, a town in Bithynia. These bishops
openly proclaimed their denunciation of Arrius’s doctrine as something that
a great amount of evidence showed to be both dangerous and deplorable.

26. In the middle of these affairs, it remains unclear why, the emperor
Constantine was moved to turn his avenging sword and the punishment
he had devised for blasphemers against his own kin. For he killed his son,
Crispus, and his sister’s son, Licinius.Besides this, he embroiled many
peoples in war. 27. He was the first, or rather the only, Roman king to
found a town which took his own name.^^^ This town, the only one free of

Licinius which both Eutropius, and significantly Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2340, state was
done despite a sworn oath that his life would be spared. The pagan historian Zosimus, 2.28,
also notes that Licinius died in this way and adding that Constantine habitually broke the oaths
he had sworn.

292 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2333.

293 Arius (spelt Arrius in our manuscripts) is said to have held that the son was a separate
and subordinate god to God the Father, though whether in fact he believed this is open to doubt.
See Williams (1987).

294 At the Synod of Alexandria in AD 318.

295 The Council of Nicaea, AD 325. Orosius has drawn his account from Jerome, Chron¬
icle, A Abr. 2338.

296 Crispus was executed in AD 326, Licinius in c. AD 336. Both deaths are listed as occur¬
ring in the same year by Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2341, who describes the two’s execution as
‘most cruel’. Unlike Orosius, Jerome does not suppress the fact that Constantine also executed
his wife Fausta; see Chronicle, A Abr. 2344. Eutropius, 10.6.3, mentions all three killings in
succession, stating that Fausta was executed because of the number of lovers she had taken.
The murder of Crispus led to a pagan allegation that Constantine had only become a Christian
in order to purge his guilt for this action; see Zosimus, 2.29, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 1.5.

297 Constantinople. Constantine decided to build his new capital soon after defeating and
deposing his co-emperor Licinius in AD 324, naming it Constantinople on 8 November that
year. However, the official foundation date of the town was 11 May AD 330, when building
works were complete.

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idolatry,^®* reached, very soon after its foundation by a Christian emperor,
such a size that it was the only town able to rival Rome, a town which had
grown to this size in beauty and power only through many centuries of
suffering7^^ 28. Then Constantine was the first to change the old order to
a new and just disposition of affairs. He decreed by edict that the pagans’
temples be closed down, without killing a single man.^“ 29. Soon after¬
wards, he annihilated the teeming, powerful tribes of the Goths in the very
heart of the barbarian lands themselves, namely Sarmatia.^®' 30. He crushed
Calocaerus who attempted to launch a revolution on Cyprus.On the 30*
anniversary of his reign, he chose Dalmatius as his Caesar.^® 31. He died
in the state residence close to Nicomedia while on campaign against the
Persians, leaving the state in good order for his sons.^°^

29305

1. 1,092 years after the foundation of the City, Constantins, along with
his brothers, Constantine and Constans, became the 35th man to obtain the
empire.^®® He held power for twenty-four years. Constantine’s successors
had also included his brother’s son, the Caesar Dalmatius, but he was killed
straightaway in a military conspiracy.^®’

298 It was de rigueur to believe this in the early Church (see Eusebius, Life of Constan¬
tine, 3.47), but Constantine’s attitude to paganism was more ambiguous than Orosius implies.
Zosimus, 2.31, notes that Constantine erected a shrine to the Dioscuri in the Hippodrome at
Constantinople and two pagan temples in the forum.

299 Orosius echoes the sentiments of Augustine, City of God, 5.25.

300 See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2347. The ban is also noted by Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History, 1.18, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 1.8.

301 Orosius sees this victory, drawn from Jerome Chronicle, A Abr. 2348, as a consequence
of Constantine’s suppression of paganism. He does not, however, attribute Constantine’s
victory directly to his faith, as does Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 1 . 1 8 , or impute any direct
divine aid to Constantine as does Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 1.8.

302 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2350. Calocaerus’s uprising took place in AD 334.

303 Dalmatius the Younger, son of Constantine’s brother, Dalmatius the Elder. He was
made Caesar on 15 September AD 335.

304 For a much more negative assessment of Constantine’s reign, see Zosimus, 2.32-39.
For a modern discussion of the controversies his reign has generated see Lieu and Monserrat
(1998).

305 The bulk of this chapter follows closely, though abbreviates, Eutropius, 10.9-10.15.2.

306 Orosius’s chronology is two years awry. At the Council of Viminacium, held on 9
September 1090 Af/C/AD 337, the three brothers all took the title Augustus and divided the
empire between them.

307 In AD 337. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2354. According to Socrates, Ecclesiastical

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2. Meanwhile the Devil’s never-ending malign hostility to the True God
which from the beginning of time down to the present day has confused the
fickle hearts of men, leading them from the true faith and the path of religion
by pouring forth clouds of error, after Christian emperors had reached the
heights of royal power and were changing things for the better, ceased to
persecute the Church of Christ by means of love of idolatry and devised a
different instrument by which it could use these selfsame Christian emperors
to do damage to the Church of Christ. 3. Therefore, a quick and easy way
was found whereby Arrius, the deviser of a new heresy, and all his disciples
should become confidants of the emperor Constantins.^®* Constantins was
then persuaded that there were different parts of the Godhead, and so a
man who had left the error of idolatry by the front door was, so to speak,
inveigled back into its bosom through a secret passage, as he began to seek
for gods in the Godhead itself. 4. His deranged power became armed with
a misguided zeal, and violent persecution was begun under the name of
piety. There was discussion about choosing a new name so that the church
should be called Arian rather than Catholic. 5. These events were followed
by a terrible earthquake that razed vast numbers of towns in the east to the
ground.*®®

Constantine through foolish rashness brought himself into danger while
fighting against his brother Constans and was killed by Constans’ gener¬
als.*'® 6. Constans fought nine battles with little success against the Persians
and Sapor, who had laid waste to Mesopotamia. Finally, he was forced by
his mutinous and ill-disciplined troops to attack the Persians at night. He
lost the battle when victory was in his grasp and went on to be defeated
himself.*" 7. After he had given himself up to insufferable vices*'* and was

History, 2.25, Dalmatius was lynched by his troops, ‘Constantins having neither commanded
his demise, nor forbidden it’. Zosimus, 2.40, places the blame for Dalmatius’s murder firmly
on Constantins.

308 According to Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 2.2, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 3.1, the Arians suborned Eusebius, the chief eunuch of the imperial bed-chamber,
who first spread Arianism to the empress and then to the emperor himself.

309 Orosius’s account of the rise of Arianism is a much-embroidered version of Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2355. The subsequent earthquake, again embroidered, is drawn from Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2357.

310 At Aquileia in the spring of AD 340; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2356. Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, 2.5, says Constantine was killed by his own generals.

311 Orosius has confused Constans here with Constantius II; see Jerome, Chronicle, A
Abr. 2363.

312 A reference to sodomy, see Aurelius Victor, Lives of the Caesars, 41.23-24, and
Zosimus, 2.42.

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currying favour with the troops at the expense of the people of the provinces,
Magnentius cunningly killed him in a town on the borders of Spain called
Helena7'^ 8. Magnentius usurped imperial power at Autun^''* and swiftly
brought Gaul, Africa, and Italy under his control.

9. Meanwhile, in Illyricum the troops proclaimed the elderly Vetranio
as their emperor.^'® He was a simple-minded soul and kind to all, but had
never been given even the first elements of an education. 10. Because of
this, it happened that while the old emperor was begrudgingly learning the
alphabet and the syllables found in words, he was ordered to give up his
power by Constantius, who was burning to take vengeance on Magnentius
for his brother and preparing for war. Vetranio cast aside his studies along
with the purple, and content with the quiet life of a private man, left both
the palace and the schoolroom.^'*’

11. At this point in time, Nepotian, Constantine’s sister’s son, seized
power with a band of gladiators, but after his wickedness was seen and he
had become universally hated because of it, he was suppressed by Magnen-
tius’s generals.^'’

12. There then followed a terrible battle between Constantius and
Magnentius which was fought by the city of Mursa. The squandering of
Roman might there weakened even future generations.^'* 13. Magnentius,
though defeated, escaped; however, he killed himself soon afterwards at
Lyons.*'® His brother Ducentius, whom he had made Caesar and put in

313 The modern Elne in the Pyrenees. Constans’ tomb may be the striking mausoleum
at Centcelles near Tarragona in Spain. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2366, and Zosimus,
2.42. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 2.25, places Constans’ death ‘in the Gallic provinces’,
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 4.1, in ‘Western GauT.

314 18 January AD 350.

315 At Naissus on 1 March AD 350; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2367. Vetranio was the
magister militum, i.e. field marshal, of the army in Pannonia.

316 This splendid phrase is Orosius’s own. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 4.4, has a
much more prosaic account of Vetranio’s demise, stating that the usurper threw himself on
Constantius’s mercy and that the emperor, after stripping him of all official ranks, provided for
his retirement from the official treasury. Zosimus, 2.44, has Constantius depose Vetranio by
trickery and notes that his enforced retirement was in Bithynia.

317 3 June AD 350. Nepotian’s usurpation lasted a week. Orosius suppresses Jerome’s
comments, Chronicle, A Abr. 2366, that his head was paraded around Rome on a pike and that
his death was followed by proscriptions.

318 Mursa is the modern Osijek in Croatia. The battle was fought on 28 September AD 351.
Orosius’s comment about the squandering of Roman might is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle,
A Abr. 2367. For a description of the battle, see Zosimus, 2.50.

319 Orosius is a little disingenuous; ‘soon afterwards’ was in fact almost two years later:

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charge of the Gallic provinces, also hanged himself at Sens7^° 14. Constan¬
tins immediately appointed his cousin, Gallus, Caesar, but killed him shortly
after his elevation as he behaved in a cruel and tyrannical fashion^^' He also
took care quickly to encircle and suppress Silvanus who was eager to begin
a revolution in the Gallic provinces 7^^

15. On the death of Silvanus, Constantius made Julian, his cousin and
Callus’s brother, Caesar and despatched him to the Gallic provinces. Caesar
Julian acted vigorously to restore the Gallic provinces that had been ravaged
and plundered by the enemy. He put to flight a great host of Alamanni with
his small forces and bound the Germans back behind the Rhine.16. Elated
by his success, he usurped the title of Augustus, soon crossed into Italy and
Illyricum, and snatched part of Constantius’s kingdom from him while he
was occupied with fighting the Parthians.^^"^

17. When he learnt of Julian’s treachery, Constantius abandoned his
Parthian expedition and turned back to fight a civil war. He then died on
the march between Cilicia and Cappadocia.18. So this man, who had
ripped apart the peaceful unity of the Catholic faith and rent asunder the

Magnentius committed suicide on 10 August AD 353; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2369. Just
prior to his suicide, he had been defeated a second time by Constantius at ‘Mons Seleucus’, an
unknown hill in the south of France.

320 18 August AD 353. The detail about hanging is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2369; it is also mentioned by Zosimus, 2.54.

321 Gallus was executed at Istria towards the end of AD 354. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr.
2370. For Callus’s cruelty, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 14.1.1-10; 14.7.1; 14.9.1-9. For his
execution by Constantius, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 14.11.23. Zosimus, 2.55, notes Callus’s
execution, but sees this as evidence of Constantius’s brutality, making no mention of Callus’s
cruelty.

322 A Roman commander of Frankish extraction, who proclaimed himself emperor at
Cologne on 11 August AD 354. According to Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2370, his usurpation
lasted 28 days.

323 Julian’s campaigns date to AD 357-59. Orosius is thinking in particular of Julian’s
victory at the Battle of Strasbourg, fought in AD 357. For these campaigns, see Ammianus
Marcellinus, 16.2-16.4; 16.11-16.12; 17.1-17.2; 17.8-17.10; and 18.2.

324 February AD 360. Orosius has twisted his sources to Julian’s disadvantage. While
Orosius sees Julian’s pronunciamiento as the product of personal pride, Ammianus Marcel¬
linus, 20.4.17, tells us that he was proclaimed emperor against his will by his troops. This is
also the view of Eutropius, 10.15.1 and Zosimus, 3.9. The use of ‘treachery’ in the following
sentence is also Orosius’s own; Eutropius merely says, ‘when he learnt this’.

325 Constantius died in AD 361 at Mopsucrene; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. Thll.
Mopsucrene lay under the Taurus mountains, 12 miles from Tarsus. Ammianus Marcellinus,
21.15.3, has the emperor die of fever on 5 October, Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 2.47, of
apoplexy on 3 November.

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limbs of the Church by arming Christians against Christians in, so to speak,
a civil war, employed, eked out, and ended all of his unquiet reign and
troubled life in civil wars which had been stirred up even by his relatives
and kinsmen.^^*’

1. 1,116 years after the foundation of the City, lulian, who had already been
Caesar, became the 35'*' man after Augustus to take control of affairs, ruling
alone for one year and eight months. 2. He attacked the Christian faith more
through cunning than violence, trying to lure men with honours rather than
force them by torture to deny the faith of Christ and take up the worship of
idols. 3. He openly decreed that no Christian could be a teacher of the liberal
arts, but, as we have learnt from our forefathers, almost everywhere all those
affected by this edict chose to abandon their office rather than their faith.

4. lulian prepared to fight a war against the Parthians and when he had
gathered together Roman troops from all over the empire to drag down with
him to his foreordained destruction, he dedicated the blood of the Chris¬
tians to his gods, promising that he would openly persecute the Church, if
he were able to win a victory.5. He ordered an amphitheatre to be built
in lerusalem where, on his return from Parthia, he intended to throw the
bishops, monks, and all the saints of that place to beasts which had been
deliberately enraged and watch them be torn apart.^^® 6. After he marched

326 In contrast to Orosius’s religiously motivated criticisms, Eutropius, 10.15.2, gives a
generally favourable view of Constantius, saying that he deserved to be deified. Ammianus
Marcellinus, 21.16, is equivocal, listing both virtues and vices.

327 Orosius has placed Julian’s accession in 1116 At/C/AD 363, two years too late. The
bulk of Orosius’s information is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2378-2379. See also
Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 1.32.258—59. Orosius suppresses Jerome’s comment that
Julian’s approach enjoyed a considerable amount of success. For the comment on schoolmas¬
ters, see Augustine, Confessions, 8.10. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 3.12, 3.16, Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, 5.18, and Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 3.4, state that Julian
banned the children of Christians from attending schools of higher education.

328 For Julian’s campaign, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 23.2-23.6; 24.1-24.8; 25.1-25.3;
and Zosimus, 3.12-28.

329 This implausible detail appears to be Orosius’s invention. While Jerome mentions that
Julian had vowed to offer Christian blood to his gods, there is no mention of the amphitheatre
at Jerusalem. Both this and the ‘blood vow’ appear simply to be attempts to besmirch Julian’s
reputation. Eutropius, 10.16.3, states that while Julian was a zealous persecutor of Chris¬
tians, on principle he abstained from spilling blood. Julian did attempt to refound the temple
at Jerusalem, but failed in his attempt. This is noted by Ammianus Marcellinus, 23.1.2-3;

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from Ctesiphon, he was treacherously led into the desert by a Parthian
deserter. As his troops became exhausted from their overpowering thirst
and the heat of the sun, in addition to the effort of having to march through
the sand, and began to die, the emperor became so concerned by the state of
things that, taking no precautions, he wandered through the vast desert.^^°
There he came across an enemy horseman, was run through by his lance,
and died. Thus God’s mercy ended these blasphemous plans through the
blasphemer’s death.

31332

1. 1,117 years after the foundation of the City, Jovian was created the 37'*'
emperor by the army at a time of great peril.Since he had no chance of
escaping, being both trapped by unfavourable terrain and surrounded by the
enemy, he made a treaty with the Persian king. Sapor, which, though men
thought it was lacking in dignity, was nevertheless certainly required by
necessity.2. To keep the Roman army safe and sound not just from enemy
attacks, but also the dangers of the place itself, he handed over Nisibis^^®
and part of Upper Mesopotamia to the Persians. 3. While he was marching
through Galatia on his way back to Illyricum, he retired to a new bedroom
to sleep and was overcome and suffocated by the overpowering heat from

Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 3.20; and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 5.22. All of these
accounts include references to miraculous fires which would have seemed useful for Orosius,
but he does not include the incident.

330 Perhaps there is a slight hint here of Daniel 4.31—33, where God forces the unbelieving
Nebuchadnezzar to wander through the wilderness.

331 Julian died near Samarra on the Tigris on 26 June AD 363. The account of his Parthian
campaign and death is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2379. For another account of
Julian’s death, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 25.3.3-23. Orosius makes no mention of the pious
legend that a Christian in his own army killed Julian. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 3.21,
states that most ‘current opinion’ in his day believed that one of the emperor’s own men had
killed him, but gives no motive. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.1, and Theodoret, Ecclesi¬
astical History, 3.20, echo this and give the motive not as religious, but simply anger at having
been led into great danger.

332 This chapter is drawn mainly, though in abbreviated fashion, from Eutropius, 10.17-
18. For a more detailed account of Jovian’s reign, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 25.2-5-10.

333 Orosius’s chronology is one year awry; Jovian was proclaimed emperor in 1116 AUC!
AD 363. See PLRE 1 Jovianus 3. Jovian had been a protector domesticus, i.e. one of the
emperor’s bodyguard.

334 See Zosimus, 3.32.

335 The modem Nezib in south-east Turkey.

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the braziers and the fumes from its newly whitewashed walls. His life came
to an end in the eighth month of his reign.

1.1,118 years after the foundation of the City, Valentinian was made the 38*
emperor at Nicaea by agreement of the troops and remained in power for
eleven years.2. Although he was a Christian, under Julian he fulfilled his
soldier’s oath as a commander of the emperor’s bodyguard^^® while keeping
his faith intact. When he was ordered by that sacrilegious emperor either
to sacrifice to his idols or leave the service, he knew as a true believer that
God’s judgments are more severe and His promises better than an emperor’s,
and left the service of his own free will.^^^ 3. And so after a short interval
had passed, when Julian was killed and Jovian died soon afterwards, this
man, who for the sake of Christ had lost his command, was recompensed
by Christ and took over the empire in place of his persecutor. 4. After he
had made his brother, Valens, a partner in his rule,^"'® he killed the usurper
Procopius and afterwards a great number of that man’s followers.

5. An earthquake which struck the entire earth also stirred up the sea so
much that, it is said, as the water flowed back, it struck and submerged a

336 Orosius’s information is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2380. Jovian died at
Dadastana on 17 Februaiy AD 364. For theories about his strange demise, see Ammianus
Marcellinus, 25.10.13, and Duval (2003).

337 See PLRE 1 Valentinianus 7. Orosius’s chronology is one year awry; Valentinian was
proclaimed emperor by his troops at Nicaea on 26 February 1117 At/C/AD 364.

338 The scutarii, or ‘shield-bearers’.

339 Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 3.4, states that Julian passed a law expelling Chris¬
tians from the army. Orosius’s comments here contrast with those of Ruhnus, Ecclesiastical
History, 2.268C, who states that Julian dismissed Valentinian from the service; see also
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.6. Sozomen states that Valentinian was reinstated in his
rank by Jovian. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.1, suggests that Valentinian wished to resign
his commission, but that Julian refused to accept his resignation, recognising his value to the
state. Ammianus Marcellinus, 26.1.5, merely notes that Valentinian was in command of the 2"‘^
Schola (imperial bodyguard unit) of shield-bearers when he was acclaimed emperor. Orosius
also fails to mention that Valentinian’s brother, Valens, also made a similar sacrifice for his
faith. As Valens was an Arian Christian, this information would not have been germane to
Orosius’s intentions. See Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.1.

340 See PLRE 1 Valens 8. Valens was proclaimed Augustus on 28 March AD 364 at
Constantinople.

341 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2382. Procopius proclaimed himself emperor
in Constantinople on 28 September AD 365. Valens executed him on 27 May AD 366. For a
full account of Procopius’s uprising, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 26.5-9 and Zosimus, 4.4-8.

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great number of island cities that lay by the coast, destroying them.^'*^

6. Valens was baptised by Eudoxius, a partisan of Arrius’s dogma, and
was persuaded by him to descend into this most brutal of heresies,^"^^ but
for a long time he hid his malign partisanship and never used his power to
enforce his wishes, as his brother’s authority, while he was alive, restrained
him. 7. For he was mindful how much power Valentinian could wield to
avenge the faith as an emperor, when he had showed such constancy in
keeping it when a soldier.

8. In the third year of their rule, Gratian, Valentinian’s son, was made
emperor.In the same year, real wool mixed in with the rain fell from the
clouds among the Atrebates.^'*’

9. At this time, the king of the Goths, Athanaric,^'*® cruelly persecuted the
Christians among his people and raised many barbarians killed for the faith
to a martyr’s crown. However, very many more fled, because they confessed
Christ, to Roman soil. They did not come trembling, as if to enemies, but
with confidence because they were coming to their brothers.^'*’

10. Valentinian crushed the Saxons, a race that lives by the Ocean’s
shores and impenetrable marshland and which causes terror because of its
courage and mobility, in the lands of the Franks when they were plotting to
make a dangerous incursion in large numbers into Roman territory.^'** 11.

342 For the earthquake, see also Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.3.

343 The baptism of Valens into Arianism is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2382
(Orosius cannot abide to call Eudoxius a bishop as does Jerome), as is the account of the earth¬
quake which struck on 21 July AD 365; see Kelly (2004). For Orosius, though not Jerome, the
two follow naturally from one another, as the latter presaged the troubles that then flowed from
the rule of the heretic Valens. Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 4.11, draws a parallel with the
Garden of Eden, claiming that Valens was won over to Arianism by his wife. Alba Domenica,
who in turn had been converted by Eudoxius.

344 Gratian was raised to the purple in AD 367. See Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2383. PLRE
1 Gratianus 2.

345 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2383. The Atrebates were a tribe based in north-west Gaul.
Oddly, Orosius does not mention the other prodigy mentioned by Jerome here - that many
were killed in a hailstorm at Constantinople. See also Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.11,
and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.10, where both prodigies are mentioned.

346 See PLRE 1 Athanaricus.

347 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2385. The moralising is Orosius’s own; see his comments
at 5.1.14-16 and 5.2.1-6. Athanaric’s persecution lasted from AD 369 to AD 372. Its most
famous victim was St Saba; see Heather and Matthews (1991) ch. 4. For the persecution among
the Goths, see also Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.33, and particularly Sozomen, Ecclesi¬
astical History, 6.37.

348 The campaign took place in AD 370; see Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2389. Jerome adds
that the decisive battle took place at Deuso. The details about the Franks are Orosius’s own.

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Meanwhile, the Burgundians, a new name for a new enemy and numbering
over 80,000 it is said, settled on the bank of the Rhine.12. This tribe
was scattered into camps when the interior of Germany was subjugated
by Caesar’s adopted sons, Drusus and Tiberius.They then coalesced as
a great people and even took their name from this process since they set
up many small settlements along their frontier that are commonly called
‘burgs’. They are a powerful and dangerous group, as the Gallic provinces,
of which they have assumed ownership and where they have settled, bear
witness to this day. 13. However, through the providence of the Christian
God, they have recently all become Catholics, received priests from us whom
they obey, and live peacefully, calmly, and causing no harm with the Gauls,
looking on them not as their subjects, but truly as brother Christians.^®'

14. In the eleventh year of his reign, while Valentinian was preparing
war against the Sarmatians who had poured into the Pannonian provinces
and laid waste to them, he was overcome in the town of Brigitio by a sudden
effusion of blood, which the Greeks call apoplexy, and died.®®^

For an extended account of this campaign, see Ammianus Marcellinus, 28.5.1-8. In his brief
account of campaigns in Valentinian’s reign, Orosius has omitted the near loss of Britain in
AD 367 when the provinces there suffered attacks on three sides and a Roman army was lost
(see Ammianus Marcellinus, 26.8), as he wishes to portray the orthodox Valentinian’s reign
as one of unblemished success, in contrasts to the disasters suffered under the Arian Valens.

349 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2389, including the numbers involved.

350 A reference to campaigns in Germany during the reign of Augustus. Orosius seems to
be attributing the tactics of his own times to these campaigns which in fact led to an attempt to
bring the Germans together into towns rather than to disperse them; see Dio, 56.18.2. According
to Ammianus Marcellinus, 28.5.11, the Burgundians believed themselves to be descendants of
the Romans. For a discussion of the Burgundians in this area, see Schutz (2001) 35^2.

351 Orosius omits the fact that Valentinian used the Burgundians as allies in his wars against
the Allemanni; see Ammianus Marcellinus, 28.5.9-15. The Burgundians entered the empire as
a result of the usurpation of Jovinus in AD 411; see 7.42.6 below and Prosper, Chronicle, A Abr.
2430 = PL 27 709. Orosius’s claim that the tribe converted to Trinitarian Christianity is striking
and likely to be false. The Burgundians were originally converted to Arianism and Gregory of
Tours states they were Arians in the early sixth century, when their king, Gundobad, finally
converted to Trinitarianism {History of the Franks, 2.32-34). Given Orosius’s championing of
Honorius, this assertion that the Burgundians are now controlled by Roman priests is the only
way he can save the emperor’s face and disguise the fact that Honorius had allowed this piece
of the empire to slip out of Roman control. For a general discussion of the Burgundians in this
period, see Drinkwater (2007).

352 Drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2391. Brigitio, the spelling found in Jerome, is
normally spelt Brigetio and is the modem Komarom-Szony in Hungary; see also Socrates, Eccle¬
siastical History, 4.31. Valentinian died in on 17 November AD 375. Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 6.36, erroneously places the site of Valentinian’s death in ‘a fortress in Gaul’.

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15. After his death, his son Gratian took power in the west, while his
uncle Valens held it in the eastern regions.Gratian also shared his power
with his brother Valentinian who was still merely a child.

1.1,128 years after the foundation of the City, Valens became the 39*
emperor and held power for four years after the death of Valentinian - the
only man who could make him blush when he behaved in his impious
fashion.^^^ Straightaway, as if he were now free with the bridle being taken
off his arrogance, he passed a law that monks - that is, Christians who put
aside their various earthly tasks to dedicate themselves to the single work
of the Faith - should be forced to join the army.^^® 2. At that time, the great
sand-covered wastes of Egypt which had never known human company
because of their lack of water, infertility, and dangerous abundance of
serpents, had been filled by a great host of monks who dwelt there. 3.
Tribunes and soldiers were sent here to drag away these holy men who were
true soldiers of Christ. This was persecution, but under another name, and
there many battalions of the saints were killed. 4. Let my decision to keep
silent about the details of what was done at that time by this, and similar,
commands against Catholic churches and people of the True Faith in all
various provinces speak for itself.^”

5. Meanwhile in Africa, Firmus stirred up the Moorish tribes, set himself
up as king, and laid waste to Africa and Mauretania.He took Caesarea,

353 The Sarmatian war, Valentinian’s death, and Gratian’s succession are drawn from
Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr 2391. See also Ammianus Marcellinus, 30.5-9, for an account of
these events and an assessment of his reign. Strikingly, Ammianus does not portray Valen¬
tinian as a resolute orthodox Christian as does Orosius, but rather notes that the emperor ‘was
especially remarkable during his reign for his moderation in this respect - that he kept a middle
course between the different sects of religion’.

354 See PLRE 1 Valentinianus 8. Valentinian II was proclaimed Augustus at Aquincum on
22 November AD 375. He was four at the time; see Zosimus, 4.19.

355 Orosius’s date for the beginning of Valens’ sole mle is correct.

356 This law is only otherwise known from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2391: ‘Valens passed
a law that monks should serve in the army and commanded that those who refused be clubbed
to death’.

357 Details of the persecutions are given by Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.24, and
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.20.

358 See PLRE 1 Firmus 3. This extremely serious rebellion broke out in AD 372. Its origins
lay in dynastic squabbling after the death of the Moorish prince, Nubel. Firmus was one of
his sons who murdered another, Zammac, who had enjoyed good relations with the Count in

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the finest city of Mauretania, by treachery and then filled it with fire and
slaughter, giving it to his barbarians to plunder.^^®

6. Therefore, Count Theodosius,^“ the father of the Theodosius who
later became emperor, on being dispatched by Valentinian, scattered the
Moorish tribes, breaking them in a series of battles, and forced the despon¬
dent, defeated Eirmus to commit suicide. 7. Then, after, with his foresight
born of great experience, he had returned all Africa and Mauretania to a
better state than it had been in before, he was condemned to death - a
sentence provoked by growing and unexpected envy towards him. He chose
to be baptised and have his sins pardoned at Carthage, and after taking this
sacrament of Christ that he had desired, sure, after a glorious life on earth,
of the life eternal, he willingly offered his throat to the executioner.^'’'

8. Meanwhile, the emperor Gratian, who was still a youth, on seeing an
innumerable host of enemies pouring round Rome’s borders, relying on the
power of Christ, engaged the enemy, though he had far fewer troops than
them, and with astounding good fortune won a terrible battle near Argen-
taria, a town in the Gallic provinces. For it is said that more than 30,000
Alamanni were killed in that battle with minimal losses to the Romans.

9. In the 13th year of Valens’ reign, that is shortly after Valens had hacked
apart churches and slaughtered the saints throughout the east, this root of
our sufferings brought forth abundant fruit. 10. For the race of the Huns,
which had been long hidden behind inaccessible mountains, suddenly rose
up in anger and fell upon the Goths, scattering and driving them from their
old homes. The Goths fled across the Danube and were received by Valens

Africa, Romanus. After being denounced to Valentinian by Romanus, Firmus decided there
was no alternative but to rebel. A detailed account of the rebellion is given by Ammianus
Marcellinus, 29.5. According to Zosimus, 4.16, the local population rose up against Romanus
because of his rapacity and proclaimed Firmus emperor.

359 The modem Cherchel in Algeria.

360 See PLRE 1 Theodosius 3.

361 Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2391, though Jerome gives only a bald statement of fact.
For the circumstances of Theodosius’s death, see Demandt (1969). Valens’ hostility towards
Theodosius may have been influenced by a prophecy which predicted his nemesis would have
a name beginning Theod...’; see Ammianus Marcellinus, 29.1.29; Socrates, Ecclesiastical
History, 4.19; Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.35.

362 Argentaria is the modem Colmar in France. This material, including the casualty
figures, is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2393. For Gratian’s campaign, see Ammianus
Marcellinus, 31.10.5-18. Ammianus places the Germans' force at between 40,000 and 70,000
men strong. He also says that Gratian’s victory was obtained ‘by the favour of the eternal deity’
{sempiterni numinis nutu) which perhaps suggests that the emperor did indeed lay stress on his
faith during the campaign.

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without any treaty being signed - they did not even hand over their arms
to the Romans, which would have made it safer to deal with these barbar¬
ians.^'’^ 11. After this, because of the intolerable greed of Duke Maximus,
their hunger and the insults they suffered forced them to rise in arms. They
defeated Valens’ army, and poured into Thrace, enveloping everything with
murder, arson, and pillage.

12. Valens set out from Antioch to be led to his ultimate destiny in that
luckless war. He finally felt the need to repent for his great sins and ordered
that the bishops and all of the rest of the saints be recalled from exile.

13. So in the 15th year of his reign, Valens waged a war full oftears^^^
in Thrace against the Goths who were now well prepared with a trained
army and an abundance of resources. The Romans’ cavalry squadrons were
routed by the Goths’ first charge and fled, leaving the infantry exposed. 14.
Soon these infantry legions were hemmed in on all sides by the enemies’
cavalry. They were first overwhelmed by clouds of arrows, and then, as
they fled in scattered groups and out of their minds with fear across the
pathless countryside, they were wiped out by the swords and lances of their
pursuers.^'^*

15. The emperor himself was wounded by an arrow and turned to flee.
He was carried with some difficulty to an outhouse on a small farm to hide,
but was found by the pursuing enemy who killed him by burning it down.
So that his punishment should bear even greater witness to, and provide an
even more terrible example of, Divine Wrath for future generations, he did
not even have a common grave.

363 See Ammianus Marcellinus, 31.3—4, who describes the migration as being of enormous
proportions. For a discussion of these events, see Heather (1991) 122^2.

364 See PLRE 1 Maximus 24. Similar comments are made by Ammianus Marcellinus,
31.4.9-11, and Zosimus, 4.20.6.

365 This material is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2393. See also Ammianus
Marcellinus, 31.8.6-9.

366 Valens’ repentance is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2393. According to Socrates,
Ecclesiastical History, 4.32, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 6.36-37, Valens’ moderation
was due to a speech delivered before him by Themistius. Sadly, this speech has not survived.
For the possibility that Themistius was merely echoing a change in imperial policy determined
by realpolitik, rather than expressing his known opinion, see Heather and Moncur (2001) 29-4-2.

367 The phrase is drawn from Jerome, Chronicle, A Abr. 2395.

368 The Battle of Adrianople, 9 August AD 378. For an ancient account of the battle,
see Ammianus Marcellinus, 31.13. For modern discussions, see Heather (1991), 142^7, and
Barbero (2007).

369 The core of Orosius’s description of the battle and Valens’ death is drawn from Jerome,
Chronicle, A Abr. 2395. For a more balanced ancient assessment of Valens, see Ammianus

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16. The gentiles’ stubbornness and misery can take this, but this alone,
for its consolation - that in Christian times and under Christian kings such
a great mountain of disasters were heaped all at one time on the republic’s
neck with provinces turned upside down, armies destroyed, and an emperor
burned alive. This, it is true, caused us sorrow and all the more so because
it had never happened before. 17. But how does this help to console the
pagans, as they can clearly see that here too a persecutor of the Church was
being punished? One God gave One Eaith, and spread one Church over all
the earth. It is this Church that He watches over, cherishes, and defends.
Whosoever hides under whatever name, if he does not associate with this
Church, he is a stranger to it, and if he attacks it, he is its enemy. 18. Let
the gentiles takes as much consolation as they please in the punishment
of the Jews and heretics, but let them confess that there is One, Sole God
Who is not made up of separate ‘persons’ - the greatest proof of which is
the demise of Valens. 19. Prior to this, the Goths had sent envoys, humbly
asking that bishops be sent who could teach them the principles of the
Christian faith. In his cursed wickedness, the emperor Valens sent them
teachers of Arrius’s dogma and the Goths clung to the rudiments of this, the
first faith they had received.^’” So it was by the righteous judgment of God
that they burnt alive the man because of whom they would burn when dead
for the error of heresy.^’'

1.1,132 years after the foundation of the city, Gratian became the 39'*' man to
hold power after Augustus, succeeding on the death of Valens and ruling for
six years,”^ though he had already previously been joint ruler with his uncle

Marcellinus, 31.14. For a modem, and sympathetic, discussion of the emperor, see Lenski
( 2002 ).

370 Orosius is referring to the Arian bishop, Ulfila (died AD 383), who translated the Bible
into Gothic. See Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 4.33, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History,
6.37. For a modem discussion of Ulfila’s work, see Heather and Matthews (1991) ch. 5.

371 Orosius, through his emphasis on the Goths’ ultimate fate, shows his dislike of barbar¬
ians here. His near contemporary, Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei {On the Guidance of God),
5.3, is much more generous and stresses how God will eventually bring a worthy people to
the tme faith.

372 Orosius’s chronology is one year awry: Gratian’s sole mle began in 1131 AUClAD
378. A devout Christian (Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, 2.13, describes him as ‘excelling
almost all previous emperors in his piety and religious devotion’), Gratian was the first Roman
emperor to refuse the title of pontifex maximus (see Zosimus, 4.36), and deprived pagan cults

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Valens and his brother Valentinian.^’^ 2. When he saw the state afflicted and
close to collapse, with the same foresight through which Nerva had once
chosen a Spaniard, Trajan, by whom the state was restored,^^'' he, too, chose
another Spaniard, Theodosius, and because of the need to rescue the state,
invested him with the purple at Sirmium and placed him in charge of the
east and Thrace.3. When he did this, he acted with even better judgment
than Nerva, because while Theodosius was Trajan’s equal in all the virtues
of human life, he excelled him without compare in his allegiance^^*’ to the
Faith and in the practice of religion. For the one was a persecutor of the
Church,^’’ while the other helped it grow. 4. And so while the former was
granted not even one son of his own in whose succession he might rejoice,
the glorious progeny of the latter have ruled both east and west through
succeeding generations down to our own day.

5. Theodosius, therefore, believing that a state afflicted by God’s wrath

of their traditional state subsidies. His most memorable act was to remove the statue of Victory
from the enate-house in Rome, provoking Symmachus’s famous protest, Reports (Relationes),
3.10. Vegetius, 1.1.20, believes that the decline in the quality of Roman infantry began during
Gratian’s rule.

373 From AD 367, see 7.32.8 above.

374 7.11.1.

375 See PLRE 1 Theodosius 4. For the rise of Theodosius, see Matthews (1975) ch. 4.
Theodosius had already made his military mark in AD 374 with a successful campaign against
the Sarmatians while holding the rank of Duke of Moesia, Ammianus Mai'cellinus, 29.6.15.
After the execution of his father. Count Theodosius, in AD 376, he had lived in ‘voluntaiy’
retirement in Spain. Gratian rehabilitated him in AD 378, promoted him to the rank of field
marshal, magister militum, and sent him to campaign once more against the Sarmatians;
see Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 5.5. After a successful expedition, Theodosius was
proclaimed Augustus on 19 January AD 379. Apart from the areas listed by Orosius, he was
also assigned the provinces of Dacia and Macedonia. The entire Balkans region was in turmoil
following the Roman defeat at Adrianople; see Ambrose, Letters, 14 and 15 (= PL 16 955,
956). Orosius may be echoing the official propaganda of the Theodosian regime, or simply
showing his own local patriotism, by marking out the Spanish origins of Theodosius and
Trajan. However, he refrains from trying to place Theodosius’s family in the same town as that
of Trajan, Italica neai* Seville (for such an attempt, see Themistius, Oration 16). Theodosius’s
family in fact hailed from Coca in Old Castile; see Hydatius, Chronicle, 1. Despite Orosius’s
fulsome praise of his Christian pedigree, Theodosius’s first imperial decree, Theodosian Code,
10.1.12, issued on 17 June AD 379 forbade the felling of sacred cypress trees at the shrine of
Daphne near Antioch.

376 Orosius’s use here of sacramentum, the standard term for the military oath, is carefully
chosen. It alludes to the common metaphor of Christians being soldiers of Christ, but also
underlines, and perhaps implies a judgment about, the martial aspects of these two emperors
for which they were popularly remembered.

377 See 7.12.3.

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must be set aright by God’s mercy, placed all his trust in Christ’s aid and
straightaway attacked the mighty Scythian tribes, who had been a terror
to all our ancestors, and were, as Pompeius and Cornelius”® bear witness,
avoided by Alexander the Great himself. In a great sequence of battles,
he defeated these tribes, namely the Alans, Huns, and Goths, who were
well supplied with Roman horses and weapons after the destruction of the
Roman army,”^ 6. entered the city of Constantinople in triumph,®®” and, in
order not to wear out the small band that now comprised the Roman army
by constant fighting, struck a treaty with Athanaric, king of the Goths. 7.
Athanaric, however, died as soon as he arrived in Constantinople. On the
death of their king, all the tribes of the Goths, seeing the courage and kindli¬
ness of Theodosius, surrendered themselves to the power of Rome.®®'

8. At the same time, the Persians who, after the death of the persecutor
Julian, had often defeated the emperors who succeeded him, and now, after
putting Valens to flight, were belching forth with boorish insults their satiety
at this recent victory, nevertheless humbly sent ambassadors of their own
free will to Theodosius at Constantinople to seek peace. A treaty was then
struck, and from that time the entire east has enjoyed tranquility down to
the present day.®®®

378 i.e. Trogus and Tacitus, cf. 1.16.2.

379 See Zosimus, 4.25, who suggests that campaigning here was easier than Orosius
implies. This is also tme of Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, 5.5, who does so to imply that
Theodosius enjoyed divine favour. Sadly the bulk of the details concerning these campaigns
fought in AD 379—380 has been lost; see Thompson (1966) 22 and n. 2. Orosius’s comments
on the destruction of the Roman army are a reference to the battle of Adrianople

380 In November AD 380. Prior to this, Theodosius had used Salonica as the base for his
operations. Zosimus, 4.33, states that Theodosius’s victory celebrations were groundless and
that his presence in Constantinople was marked by continual debauchery. He goes on to imply
that Roman successes were due to the generals Bauto and Argobastes sent by a fmstrated
Gratian rather than to Theodosius. Significantly Orosius makes no mention of Theodosius’s
edict of 27 February 380 issued at Constantinople which imposed Nicaean Christianity on
all his subjects {Theodosian Code, 16.1.2) nor his illness and baptism later that year; see
Ensslin (1953) 17f. These actions and Theodosius’s attacks on pagan shrines may well explain
Zosimus’s hostility to the emperor.

381 Athanaric fled to Constantinople on 11 January AD 381 as a result of a civil war
between himself and Fritigem {Consularia Constantinopolitana s.a. 381, 382). After his death
on 25 January, Theodosius gave him a lavish. Roman-style funeral (see Ammianus Marcel-
linus, 27.5.10, and Zosimus, 4.34) and a funerary monument. Orosius, however, is being disin¬
genuous, as a formal peace with the Visigoths was not signed until 3 October AD 382. The
treaty allowed the Goths to settle within the empire SLsfoederati, i.e. as an autonomous people.

382 This treaty, made in AD 387, partitioned Armenia. Rome gained the smaller pait, but
one that filled a dangerous salient in her frontier with Persia. Roman rule was nominal in the six

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9. Meanwhile, while Theodosius, after subduing barbarian tribes in
the east, was finally liberating the Thracian provinces, and made his son,
Arcadius, his consort,^*^ Maximus, a vigorous man of proven ability, and
worthy of the purple, had he not broken his oath and dyed himself as a
usurper,^*'* was, almost against his will, declared emperor by the army in
Britain, and crossed into Gaul.^®^ 10. There, through treachery, he captured
and put to death the emperor Gratian, who had been terrified by his sudden
incursion and was intending to retreat to Italy.He also drove Gratian’s
brother, the emperor Valentinian,^*’ from Italy.^** Valentinian fled to the east
where Theodosius received him with a father’s piety and soon even restored
him to his throne.

satrapies she gained - the Armenians retained their own laws and local rulers were to command
any levies raised for the Roman army.

383 See PLRE 1 Arcadius 5. Arcadius was declaimed Augustus on 19 Januaiy AD 383.

384 See PLRE 1 Maximus 39. It is hard not to detect here an echo of Tacitus’s famous
judgment on Galba ‘that it would have been believed that he was capable of ruling, had he not
m\Qd\ Histories, 1.49.

385 In AD 383. Magnus Maximus, who was of Spanish origin, was Count of the British
provinces at the time of his usurpation. The favourable assessment of Orosius contrasts sharply
with the wholly negative account of Gildas, On the Destruction and Conquest of Britain {De
Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae), 13, for whom Maximus was nothing more than a brutal
usurper. Orosius is motivated first by Magnus’s Spanish origins, but, above all, because he put
to death the controversial Spanish cleric Priscillian whom Orosius regarded as an arch-heretic
and against whom he wrote his Defence {Liber Apologeticus). For a discussion of the usurpa¬
tion and its possible motives, see Matthews (1975) 173ff.

386 Gratian was captured at Lyons and put to death by Maximus’s general, Andragathius,
on 25 August AD 383. According to Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 5.11, Andragathius
disguised himself in a litter decorated like that used by the empress, leapt out from it, and
assassinated the unsuspecting emperor. A similar account is found in Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 7.13, where we are told that the young emperor on seeing the litter, being ‘passion¬
ately attached to his wife, hastened incautiously across the river, and in his anxiety to meet her,
fell without forethought into the hands of Andragathius.’ He was executed soon afterwards.
Zosimus, 4.35, states that Gratian had alienated his troops by showing excessive favouritism
to the Alans at his court.

387 Aged 12 at the time.

388 The situation was more complex than Orosius suggests. Initially, Maximus was content
with Gaul and Spain, leaving Valentinian in charge of Italy. Valentinian recognised Maximus
as an official Augustus in AD 384. It was only in AD 387 that Maximus finally invaded Italy
and expelled Valentinian. See Zosimus, 4.42^3.

389 For similar ‘paternal’ sentiments on the pai1 of Theodosius, see Augustine, City of
God, 5.26.

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1. 1,138 years after the foundation of the City, Theodosius was the 40“' man
to obtain sole power over the Roman Empire after the murder of Gratian by
Maximus.He remained in power for eleven years and had already ruled
for six years in the east while Gratian was alive. 2. So roused by just and
necessary reasons to wage civil war,^^' since of the two imperial brothers,
the spilt blood of one demanded vengeance and the wretchedness of the
other in exile begged for his restitution, and placing his faith in God, he took
himself off against the usurper Maximus, being his superior only in faith
- for he was by far his inferior in every sort of supplies needed for war.^^^
3. At that time, Maximus had established his court at Aquileia to
view his victory. Andragathius, his count, saw to the necessities of war.^^^
Using an enormous body of troops and tactics that counted for more than
the strength of his forces, he blocked off in an astounding fashion all the
entrances to the Alps and river estuaries. But, through the ineffable will of
God, while he was preparing a naval expedition to surprise and overwhelm
his enemy unawares, of his own free will he abandoned those very gates
that he had barred. 4. So Theodosius, without anyone realising, let alone
resisting, crossed the abandoned Alps and unexpectedly advanced upon
Aquileia. Without any trickery or opposition, he surrounded, captured, and
killed his great enemy, Maximus, a brutal man, who had exacted tribute and
taxes from the most savage German tribes merely through the terror of his
reputation.^®'* 5. Valentinian, his power restored, took control of Italy. Count
Andragathius, after learning that Maximus was dead, hurled himself from

390 Orosius’s chronology is two years awry. Theodosius’s sole rule began in 1136 AUC!
AD 383.

391 Given Orosius has already stated, 7.6.8, that Civil War was the worst of the Romans’
ills, he needs this escape clause for his hero, Theodosius, cf. 5.22.5-12.

392 Theodosius’s response to Maximus’s usurpation was not immediate as Orosius implies,
though this could have been because his own position in the east initially precluded serious
warfare in the west. In 384, he led a western expedition, allegedly to avenge Gratian (Themis-
tius. Oration 10, 220d-221a), but it came to nothing. In fact by 386 at the latest Theodosius
had recognised Maximus as an official Augustus; see Zosimus, 4.37. For Theodosius’s decisive
campaign in 388, see Zosimus, 4.45—47, who states that Theodosius was in fact reluctant to go
to war and was induced to do so only out of sexual lust.

393 See PLRE 1 Andragathius 3. Zosimus, 4.3.6, gives Andragathius rank as the magister
equitum, i.e. commander of horse.

394 28 July AD 388; see Hydatius, Chronicle, 10.17. Orosius seems to have rapidly changed
his mind about Maximus. For Maximus’s cmelty, see also Sulpicius Severus, Dialogues, 3.15,
and Pacatus, 25-26.

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his ship into the waves and drowned.Through God’s protection, Theodo¬
sius had won a bloodless victory.

6. Behold, how in Christian times and under Christian rulers civil wars
are waged, when they cannot be avoided. Matters ended triumphantly, the
city was taken, and the usurper seized. And this is the least of these wonders.
Behold, in another place, the enemy army defeated and the usurper’s count,
more brutal than the tyrant himself, forced to commit suicide, the great
number of snares undone and evaded, and the great preparations that were
in vain. 7. But no one practised treachery, no one drew up a line of battle,
indeed, no one, if I may say so, drew his sword from its scabbard. That
most terrible war was consummated to the point of victory without blood¬
shed, and that victory by the deaths of only two individuals. 8. And in case
anyone thinks that this was brought about by chance rather than by the
power of God, through which all things are ordered and judged and which,
proclaimed through its clear testimony, may either reduce the minds of
doubters to confusion or compel them to Faith, I shall refer to a thing that
everyone knows and yet is unknown to everyone: 9. namely that after this
war in which Maximus was slain, many wars as we all know, both foreign
and civil, pursued Theodosius and his son, Honorius^^® down to the present,
but, nevertheless, almost all of these, right down to the present day, have
ended with the fruit of a clear-cut and holy victory, and with very little, or
no, shedding of blood.

10. On the death of Maximus and his son Victor, whom Maximus had
left as emperor of the Gauls,^^’ the younger Valentinian’s rule was restored
and he himself crossed over into Gaul.^^* Here, while he ruled this tranquil
state peacefully, he was strangled at Vienne, through the treachery, men say,
of his count, Arbogastes,^®^ and then hanged up on a noose in order that he
might be thought to have willingly taken his own life.'"’®

395 If we to believe Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 5.14, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 7.14, this death was on a river. However, Zosimus, 4.47, like Orosius, more plausibly
places Andragathius’s death at sea.

396 See PLRE 1 Honorius 3.

397 Flavius Victor, AD 384-88, see PLRE 1 Victor 14. Victor was hunted down and killed
by Theodosius’s general Argobastes, Zosimus, 4.47. On the other hand, Theodosius treated
Maximus’s mother and daughters with great leniency. See Ambrose, Letters, 40.32.

398 Theodosius’s presence in Italy meant that Valentinian’s passage to Gaul was one of
virtual internal exile.

399 See PLRE 1 Arbogastes.

400 15 May AD 392. According to Zosimus, 4.54, Argobastes openly murdered Valen-
tinian. Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 5.25, is of the same opinion, as is Zosimus, 4.53—54.

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11. On the death of the Augustus Valentinian, Arbogastes soon found
the nerve to set up Eugenius as a usurper.'"” He picked a man to whom he
could give the title of emperor, but he, a barbarian overly endowed with
audacity and might in mind, council, and deed, intended to run the empire.
He gathered together from all sides a vast number of undefeated troops,
both garrisons of Romans and barbarian auxiliaries, trusting in his rank to
influence one group and his kinship to influence the other. 12. There is no
need to describe at length events that many witnessed and that those who
actually saw them know better than myself. Arbogastes himself, on both
occasions, is the best proof that Theodosius always triumphed through the
power of God and not through trusting in man’s ingenuity. Eor when he
served Theodosius, Arbogastes captured Maximus, even though that man
had the stoutest defences, with the minimum of effort. But then when he
rushed out against the same Theodosius, with the united strength of the
Gauls and Eranks, and placing reliance on his devoted worship of idols, he
was very easily laid low. 13. Eugenius and Arbogastes drew up their line of
battle on the plains. They cunningly placed forward ambush parties on the
narrow slopes of the Alps and in the passes which Theodosius had to cross,
planning that, though they were weaker in numbers and strength,'"’^ they
would triumph simply by their tactics.

Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 7.22, perhaps knowing that Valentinian had been frustrated in
his attempt to cashier Arbogastes (see Zosimus, 4.53), also states that the emperor committed
suicide, but also notes that ‘some’ asserted that the Valentinian had committed suicide out
of frustration that he was not allowed to act as he wished, perhaps implying he was under a
form of de facto house arrest. Matthews (1975) 238 is inclined to believe that Valentinian did
indeed commit suicide, see also Croke (1976). Valentinian was buried in Milan and his funeral
oration delivered by St Ambrose, On the Death of Valentinian {De Obitu Valentiniani) = CSEL
73 329-67.

401 See PLRE 1 Eugenius 6. Eugenius, a teacher of rhetoric, was the magister of one of
the imperial scrinia, (or state secretarial bureaux). He was proclaimed emperor at Lyons on
22 August AD 392, Consularia Constantinopolitana s.a. 392. Whether or not the rebellion
began as a pagan reaction to Theodosius’s aggressive Christian politics, it rapidly took on
pagan overtones. Eugenius himself professed Christianity, but was said to have been a crypto¬
pagan; see Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 7.22. On their departure from Milan to confront
Theodosius, Argobastes and Eugenius threatened to stable their horses in the town’s Christian
basilica when they returned; Paulinus, Life of Ambrose, 31 = PL 14 37. For the use of pagan
symbolism at the Battle of Frigidus itself see Augustine, City of God, 5.26, and Theodoret,
Ecclesiastical History, 5.24.4; 5.24.17. Eugenius’s rule lasted until September AD 394. He is
much praised by Zosimus, 4.54.

402 Orosius, in order to make a pious point, contradicts himself. After previously stating
that Arbogastes had more troops than Theodosius, 7.35.11—12, he now admits that he was the
weaker party.

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391

14. But Theodosius, standing on the summit of the Alps, devoid of food
and sleep, knowing that he had been abandoned by his men, though not
knowing that he was surrounded by his enemies, lay with his body on the
ground and, with his mind fixed on heaven, prayed to the Lord Christ: one
man praying to the One God Who can bring about all things. 15. Then, after
he had passed a sleepless night in constant prayer'*®^ and left as witnesses
almost lakes of tears through which he purchased the protection of heaven,
alone he loyally took up his arms, knowing that he was not alone. He gave
the sign of the Cross as the sign for battle and marched to war assured of
victory regardless of whether anyone should follow him.'*®'^ 16. Arbitio, the
Count of the enemy forces, was his first step on the road to salvation.'^
Although he had trapped the unwitting emperor in an ambush,'^“ he was
moved to reverence in the presence of his Augustus, and not only freed him
from danger, but even gave him support.

17. However, when he arrived within range to give battle, straightaway
a great, ineffable whirlwind'*®’ blew in his enemies’ faces. Our javelins were
carried through the air further than they can be thrown by human hands and,
born over the void, were almost never allowed to fall before they had found
their mark. 18. Moreover, the incessant whirlwind at one moment lashed
the enemies’ breasts and faces, beating their shields heavily against them,
at another rendered them immobile by pressing their shields hard against
them, at another laid them bare, violently snatching their shields away, and
at another forced them to turn their backs to their opponents, spinning their
shields around. Even the spears that the enemy threw with all their might,
were caught up by the blast of the wind, had their strength reversed, and
were forced back again, transfixing their unfortunate owners.'*®* 19. In a

403 Orosius wishes his reader to draw a parallel with the Agony in the Garden; see Matthew
26.36-A6; Mark 14.35^1; and Luke 22.39-46.

404 A parallel with Christ’s journey to Calvary, the Via Dolorosa, is implied. According
to Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 5.25, Theodosius’s recourse to prayer happened after his
vanguard, composed of Gothic auxiliaries, had been severely mauled by Eugenius’s troops.
Given Orosius’s attitude to the Goths, see 7.35.9 below, it is unsurprising that he suppresses
this detail.

405 Virgil, Aeneid, 6.96.

406 Arbitio’s troops had sealed off Theodosius’s line of retreat.

407 The wind known as the ‘Bora’.

408 For this miraculous aid, see Claudian, Panegyric on the Emperor Honorius’s third
consulate {Panegyricus de Tertio Consulatu Honorii Augusti), 93-95 and Ambrose, Explana¬
tion of the Psalms, 36.25.2—4 = CSEL 64.91. Apart from this miracle, Theodoret asserts that St
John and St Philip accompanied Theodosius’s army.

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panic produced by human conscience,they looked to their own safety
and, after a small group of them had been routed, the enemy army straight¬
away prostrated itself before the triumphant Theodosius/'® Eugenius was
captured and executed, while Arbogastes fell by his own hand/" And so
the civil war was ended hy the deaths of these two men, apart from the
10,000 Goths who, it is said, were Theodosius’s advance guard and were
completely wiped out by Arbogastes. But to lose them was a gain and their
defeat was a victory.""^

20.1 am not insulting my detractors,""® hut let them produce from any
time since the foundation of the City one example of a war begun through
such pious necessity which was so easily brought to a close by such Divine
aid and calmed though such good-will and forgiveness; where battle did
not produce much slaughter^'"' nor victory blood-stained vengeance. Then,
perhaps, I will concede that these things do not seem to have been granted
because of the faith of a Christian leader. 21. But I have no fears of their
testimony, since one of them, a famous poet, though a notorious pagan, has
left a record of the event for God and for man in these verses:

O deeply beloved of God, for you the sky joins battle

And the winds banded together come to the trumpet’s callf^^

409 i.e. the miracle, as Orosius would have it, of the whirlwind showed Eugenius and
Arbogastes’ men that God was against them.

410 The Battle of the River Frigidus, (the modern Wippach) fought on 5 and 6 September
AD 394. Orosius’s account closely parallels that of Ambrose, Explanation of the Psalms,
36.25. Zosimus, 4.58, gives a very different account in which Eugenius gave his troops leave
to feast after they had defeated Theodosius’s Gothic troops and Theodosius fell upon them
unawares the following morning.

411 Eugenius was beheaded and his head paraded through Italy on a spear; Zosimus, 4.58,
and John of Antioch,/?: 187. According to Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 5.25, and Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, 7.24, Eugenius was beheaded by Theodosius’s troops as he grovelled
at the emperor’s feet. For Argobastes’ suicide, see the passages from Zosimus, Socrates, and
Sozomen cited above, and also Claudian, Panegyric on the Emperor Honorius’s Third Consu¬
late, 102f.

412 This is the nearest Orosius comes to mentioning the inconclusive first day of fighting
when half of Theodosius’s 20,000 Gothic foederati and his Iberian general, Bacurius, were
killed; see Jordanes, History of the Goths, 28. Orosius seems to have forgotten his maxim that
all Christians are brothers at this point.

413 Orosius’s pagan critics.

414 The 10,000 slain Goths may have disputed this point.

415 Claudian, Panegyric on the Emperor Honorius's Third Consulate, 96-98. The quota¬
tion is a bowdlerised version given by Augustine, City of God, 5.26. In the original, Claudian
attributes the miracle of the whirlwind to the god Aeolus. ‘O deeply beloved of God, for
whom Aeolus pours forth armed storms from his caves , for whom the sky joins battle and the

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22. This was Heaven’s judgment between the party which had no human
help, but humbly placed its hope in God alone, and that which had the
arrogant presumption to trust in its own strength and idols.

23. Theodosius having set the state at peace and rest died at Milan."^'®

1 . 1,149 years after the foundation of the City, Arcadius Augustus, whose
son, Theodosius, now rules the east, and Honorius Augustus, his brother,
whom the state obeys today, began their joint rule as the 41st emperors; they
were divided only by where they lived.'^'^ Arcadius lived for twelve years
after the death of his father and, when on his deathbed, gave his supreme
power to his son Theodosius, who was still a child."^'®

2. Meanwhile Count Gildo,'*'® who had been governor of Africa at the
beginning of the two’s reign, as soon as he learnt of Theodosius’s death,
either motivated by envy, as some say, tried to join Africa to the eastern part
of the empire,'^^'’ 3. or, as another opinion holds, believing that there was
little hope to be had in the rule of two young boys, above all, because, apart
from these two, no boy who had previously been left with supreme power
had had an easy journey to maturity and adulthood, and these two were
virtually alone (for divided from one another and abandoned, it was only
Christ’s protection which guarded them for the sake of their father’s, and
their own, great faith), he dared to cut Africa off from the state and take it for

winds banded together come to the trumpet’s call.’ It is unclear whether Orosius knew these
verses other than from Augustine, but even had he done so, their modification would not have
troubled him.

416 Theodosius’s funeral oration was delivered by Ambrose, On the Death of Theodosius
{De Obitu Theodosii) = CSEL 73 371—401. His body was finally buried in Constantinople
beside those of Constantine and his successors in the Church of the Apostles. For a hostile
ancient assessment of Theodosius, see Zosimus, 4.59. For a modern discussion of Theodosius’s
reign, see Friell and Williams (1994).

417 Orosius’s chronology is one year awry. The two brothers began their reigns in 1148
AC/C/AD 395. Honorius ruled from AD 395-423, Arcadius from AD 395^08. Despite Orosi¬
us’s insistence on their unity, the rule of Honorius and Arcadius in AD 395 is normally taken
as the beginning of the division of the Roman Empire into two separate units and relations
between the two courts were far from ideal.

418 Orosius is wrong about Arcadius’s son, Theodosius II. Arcadius made him co-ruler in
AD 403, long before his death in AD 408.

419 See PLRE 1 Gildo.

420 This is the view of Zosimus, 5.11, who states that the most powerful of Arcadius’s court
eunuchs, Eutropius, supported Gildo precisely to bring this about.

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himself. He did this more because he enjoyed the licentious pagan life there
than through being puffed up with hopes of becoming emperor."'^' 4 . He had
a brother, Mascezil, who was horrified at his preparations for revolution and
returned to Italy, leaving his two young sons with the African army. Gildo,
seeing the absence of his brother, but the presence of his sons, as suspicious,
captured them by treachery and killed them.'*^^

5. His brother Mascezil was then dispatched to wage war on him as an
enemy of Rome, for his recent sorrow at his family bereavement held out
the promise that he was the right man to look after the state’s interests.'*^^
Now Mascezil already knew from Theodosius’s example how much a man’s
prayers made in the Faith of Christ obtain from God’s mercy in desperate
circumstances, and he went to the Isle of Capraria'*^"^ whence he took with
him some holy servants of God who were moved by his prayers. With them
he spent his time in praying, fasting, and singing psalms, ceasing neither by
day and nor by night, and so earned a victory without fighting and Africa’s
reconquest without bloodshed."^^^

6. There is a river called the Ardalio, which flows between the cities of

421 Gildo was a Moorish prince, a son of king Nabul, who was appointed Count of Africa
in AD 385 and promoted to supreme military command in Africa as Commander of both Arms
(i.e. infantry and cavalry) in Africa, Magister utriusque militiae per Africam, at some time
before 30 December AD 393 {Theodosian Code, 9.7.9), receiving this title for his help in
suppressing the rebellion of his brother, Firmus, in Africa; see 7.33.5-6 above. He had been
restive prior to his rebellion, refusing to send support to Theodosius in his campaign against
Eugenius. Gildo appears to have been a strong supporter of the schismatic Donatist church as
Augustine brands the Donatist bishop Optatus as Gildo’s man, ‘Gildonianus’ {Arguments on
Baptism opposing the Donatists {De Bapistismo contra Donatistas, 2.11 = PL 43 137). The
death of Theodosius may have been a catalyst for Gildo’s outright rebellion in AD 397 which
cut Rome off from its major food supply. Of the two motives that Orosius suggests for the
rebellion, the most likely is that Gildo wanted to attach Africa to the eastern empire. This is
the view of Zosimus, 5.11, who states that Gildo was urged to rebel by the influential eunuch
at Constantinople, Eutropius.

422 See Claudian’s unfinished poem The War against Gildo {De Bello Gildonico), 1.390-
98. Zosimus, 5.11, has a more self-interested account in which Gildo conspires against his
brother in a ‘baiEarian frenzy’ and forces him to flee to Stilicho in Italy.

423 See PLRE 1 Mascezel. Ironically Mascezil had fought with Firmus against Rome and
Gildo in the uprising of AD 372-73; see Ammianus Marcellinus, 29.5.11.

424 Capraja, lying between Corsica and Tuscany. See also Claudian, The War against
Gildo, 415-23. Sanchez Salor’s (1982), 258 n. 483, identification of the island as Cabrera
should be resisted. The island was a singularly appropriate destination for Mascezel, as the
main article of manufacture on the island was a coarse goat-hair shirt, used at times of penance
(see Augustine, Letters, 48).

425 cf. the comments on Theodosius’s victory at 7.35.20.

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Thebeste and Ammedera."^^'’ He camped here with a small band, some 5,000
soldiers they say,"*^’ facing an enemy 70,000 strong. After a short delay, he
decided to leave his position and cross the narrow pass of a valley lying
in front of him. 7. As night fell, the blessed Ambrose, the bishop of Milan
who had died shortly before,"*^® appeared to him in a dream, beckoning to
him with his hand and striking the ground three times with his staff saying,
‘Here, here, here.’ Mascezil wisely interpreted this as meaning that victory
had been assured him through the merits of the man who had brought him
the news; through his words, its place; and through their number, the day.
8. He stayed in his position and finally on the third day after a night-vigil
of hymns and prayers, he set forth from the mysteries of the Holy Sacra¬
ments against the enemy who had surrounded him. 9. As he hurled his pious
words of peace at the first enemies he encountered, Mascezil struck on the
arm with his sword a standard-bearer, who arrogantly stood in his way and
was on the point of starting the battle. The man’s hand was paralysed by
the blow and he was forced to lower his standard to the ground. 10 . When
they saw this, the rest of the enemy’s army thought that their vanguard had
surrendered, turned their banners round, and fought to surrender themselves
to Mascezil. The great host of barbarians whom Gildo had brought to fight,
after being abandoned by the defection of his regular troops, fled in all
directions.'*^^ 11 . Gildo himself fled, seizing a ship to put out to sea, but he
was summoned back to Africa and strangled to death a few days later.

12 . If the testimony of those who were there did not come to our aid,
we would be in danger of being accused of presumptuous, shameless lying
when speaking about such great miracles. There was no ambush, nor any
bribery - 70,000 of the enemy were defeated almost without a fight. The
vanquished fled in a timely fashion lest the enraged victor dare to do more,
and Gildo was spirited away to a different place so that his brother would
not know he had been killed and that he had been avenged by his death.

13 . It is true that this same Mascezil became puffed up with arrogance
by his success, forgot his association with the saints with whose help he
had beforehand triumphantly fought for God, and dared to desecrate a
church; not hesitating to drag some men out of it. Punishment followed this

426 The modern Tebessa and Haidra in Algeria.

427 The units are listed by Claudian, The War against Gildo, 1.415-23.

428 St Ambrose died in AD 397.

429 The battle took place on 31 July AD 398.

430 According to Zosimus, Gildo hanged himself immediately after the battle to avoid
capture.

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sacrilege, for after some time had passed, he alone was punished while those
whom he had dragged from the church to punish were still alive and derided
him. And so he made himself an example that divine judgment always has
two sides, for when he placed his hope in it, he was helped, when he spurned
it, he was killed.'^^'

1 . Now after the care of the two children and the affairs of the two palaces
had been entrusted by the old emperor Theodosius to the two most powerful
men in the state: namely Rufinus at the court of the east and Stilicho in
the western empire, their ends show what each did and tried to do.'^^^ One
tried to take royal power for himself,the other to take it for his son.'*^'*
The former brought barbarians into the empire and the latter helped him to
do so in order that after the state had suddenly been thrown into disorder,
their criminal ambitions could be covered up by pleading the necessity of
the state.

2. I shall say nothing about how King Alaric and his Goths were
often defeated and often trapped, but always allowed to go free."^^® I shall
say nothing about those terrible acts done at Pollentia,"^^'’ when supreme

431 Zosimus, 5.11, holds that Mascezil was a victim of Stilicho’s envy and drowned by
being pushed off a bridge in Rome. Orosius probably collected some of the details of his
account of Gildo’s rebellion during his stay in Africa.

432 For Rufinus, see PLRE 1 Rufinus 18. A Gaul by origin, Rufinus was made Praetorian
Prefect of the east in AD 392. He had been de facto ruler of the east since Theodosius has
marched from Constantinople to face Maximus in AD 394. For Stilicho, see PLRE 1 Stilicho.
Stilicho, is spelt Stilico in our manuscript tradition, but for ease of reference the standard
spelling has been retained in this translation. Stilicho was half-Vandal and had maiiied Theod¬
osius’s niece, Serena, in AD 393 when he was made magister militiim. Theodosius made him
Honorius’s guardian and put him in command of the western empire after the Battle of Frigidus,
but before the onset of his illness. For the two’s dominance of the state, see Zosimus, 5.1.

433 Zosimus, 4.51, hints that Rufinus may have been tempted to usuip the eastern empire.
He was killed through the machinations of Stilicho and Arcadius’s court eunuch, Eutropius,
on 27 November AD 397; see Zosimus, 5.7-8. According to Zosimus, 5.5, Rufinus had invited
Alaric and the Visigoths to invade the empire. However Socrates, Ecclesiastical History, 6.1
and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 8.1, state that he had been conspiring with the Huns.
Orosius displays no interest or knowledge of the affairs of the eastern empire after Rufinus’s
death.

434 Stilicho, see 7.38.1 below.

435 See PLRE 1 Alaricus. This is a reference to Alaric’s first invasion of Italy AD 401-403.

436 The modern Pollenzo.

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command was given to a barbarian, pagan general, namely Saul,'^” who
in his wickedness violated the most revered days of the year and Holy
Easter, forcing the enemy, who had withdrawn in respect for religion, to
fight. Then God showed in a brusque judgment what His favour can do and
what His vengeance exacts, for we won the battle, but were vanquished
in our victory."^^* 3. I shall say nothing about the savage fighting between
the barbarians themselves, when two formations of Goths, followed hy the
Vandals and Huns, ripped each other apart in varied acts of slaughter.

4 . Radagaisus, who was by far the most barbarous of all Rome’s present
and past foes, suddenly launched an invasion into all of Italy.They say
that there were more than 200,000 Goths among his people."*'^® 5. Apart from
the incredible size of his host and his own indomitable courage, because
he was a pagan and a Scythian,"'"" he had vowed, as is the custom among
barbarous nations of this kind, to placate his gods by sacrificing every last
drop of Roman blood to them. 6. When this danger loomed over Rome’s
defences, all the pagans gathered together in the City, saying, ‘An enemy
has arrived who is powerful because of the size of his forces, but more than
this, because he has the protection of the gods, while the City has been
abandoned by them and will soon perish because she has lost her gods
and their sacred rites.’ 7. This sort of moaning was heard everywhere, and
straightaway there was talk of beginning to sacrifice again. The whole City
seethed with blasphemy, and everywhere the name of Christ was insulted as
if it were the plague of the times.

8. So it was brought about by the ineffable judgment of God that, since
among this divided people grace was owed to the pious, but to the impious
punishment and it was right to give passage to enemies, though not those that

437 See PLRE 1 Saul.

43 8 The Battle of Pollentia was fought against a Gothic army under Alaric on Easter Day, 6
April AD 402, hence Orosius’s disgust. Saul is likely to have been an Alan, Orosius suppresses
the fact that he had been one of Theodosius’s generals in the campaign leading to the Battle
of Lake Frigidus; see Zosimus, 4.57. The post eventum defeat was that Alaric was allowed to
retreat in good order. In fact, the battle appears to have resulted in a stalemate; see Pmdentius,
Against Symmachus {Contra Symmachum), 2.717-20.

439 See PLRE 1 Radagaisus. Ragadaisus was a pagan who invaded Italy from Pannonia in
late AD 405 with a band of Ostrogoths. For the sentiments underlying Orosius’s treatment of
Radagaisus, see Augustine, City of God, 5.23.

440 It also contained Alans and Vandals. Zosimus, 5.26, gives a total number of 400,000.
Bury (1958), 1.167 n. 3, would place the number at no more than 50,000, regarding Orosius’s
figure like others from antiquity as a ‘gross exaggeration’.

441 Radagaisus is more likely to have been a German.

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would kill everyone by indiscriminate slaughter, so that they could chastise
the City, which for the most part was inflexible and hostile to the faith,
more severely than usual, at that time two Gothic tribes, led by their two
most powerful kings, raged through Rome’s provinces. 9. One of these was
Christian, more like a Roman, and, as events have proved, less savage in his
slaughter through his fear of God.'*'*^ The other was a pagan and barbarian, a
true Scythian, whose insatiable cruelty loved slaughter for slaughter’s sake
as much as glory and plunder. This man entered the heart of Italy at this
time and, drawing near, made Rome tremble and quake with terror. 10 .
Now if the power of exacting vengeance had been given to this man whom
Rome thought especially dangerous because he had courted the favour of
the gods by sacrificing to them, the slaughter would have been all the worse,
leaving no chance for repentance, and error would have taken root anew,
worse than before. For had they fallen into the hands of a pagan idolator, not
only would those pagans who survived indubitably have been convinced to
renew the cult of idols, hut Christians too would have become dangerously
confused, since they would have been terrified by this judgment, while the
pagans would have been strengthened in their faith by what had happened.
11 . Therefore, God, the Just Director of the human race, willed the pagan
enemy to perish, but allowed the Christian one to triumph so that the pagans
and the blasphemous Romans might both be confounded by the destruc¬
tion of the former and be punished by the onset of the latter. Moreover,
the moderation and devout faith, so admirable in a king, of the emperor
Honorius earned no small measure of Divine mercy.

12 . God granted that the minds of Rome’s other enemies be inclined
to give her help against Radagaisus, her most terrible enemy: for Uldin'*"'^
and Sarus,"*^ the leaders of the Huns and Goths came to defend Rome.'*'*^
But God did not allow what had been brought about by His power to be
seen to be the result of human courage, least of all that of the enemy. 13 .
For the Godhead drove the terrified Radagaisus into the Fesulanian hills'*"**
and through overwhelming, all-encompassing panic trapped his 200,000

442 Alaric and his people. Orosius goes on to make great play of Alaric’s Christianity,
conveniently forgetting that Alaiic and the Goths were Arians, a heresy that he has ferociously
denounced.

443 See Maenchen-Helfen (1973) 59-72.

444 See PLRE 2 Sarus.

445 In fact, it was Stilicho who led the resistance to Radagaisus (see Zosimus, 5.26), but
Orosius, who has an intense dislike of him, suppresses this fact. Sarus was an independent Gothic
chieftain whom Alai'ic alienated, upon which he allied with Honorius; see Zosimus, 6.13.

446 The modem Fiesole.

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men (according to the lowest figure we find among historians'*"*^): devoid
of plans or provisions on a bare, brutal hillside, forcing a host which a
short time before all Italy had not seemed big enough to hold onto one
small summit in the hope it could hide there. 14 . Why should I delay my
account any longer? No battle-line was drawn up, there was none of the
uncertainty that the frenzy and fear of battle brings, no murder was done,
no blood was spilled, nor, above all, and this is normally regarded as good
fortune, were there any losses in the battle which were ‘compensated’ by
its ending in victory.'*'** Our men ate, drank, and made merry, while such
a barbarous enemy starved, grew thirsty, and languished away. 15 . This,
however, was not enough for the Romans, until they knew that they had
captured and imprisoned him whom they feared - the idolator whose sacri¬
fices were more feared than his arms - and then sneered at this man whom
they had defeated without a battle as they led him under the yoke loaded
with chains. Eor King Radagaisus whose only hope had been to flee, had
secretly deserted his own people, but had then fallen into the hands of our
own men, who took him captive, held him prisoner for a short while, and
then killed him.'*'** 16 . It is said that there were so many Gothic prisoners that
everywhere herds of men were bought for a single gold coin, just like the
poorest sort of cattle. But God did not allow any of that people to survive,
for straightaway all those who were bought began to die so that those who
had wickedly bought them spent to their sorrow in burying them that which
they had saved to their shame in buying them.'*^*’ 17 . Rome was so ungrateful
that she did not realise that the indirect working of God’s Judgment was not
to pardon their presumption in committing idolatry, but to put an end to it,
so straightaway she was to suffer God’s Wrath, though not in full measure,
for He loyally remembered the saints, both living and dead, there. In this
way, the incursion of King Alaric, their enemy, though a Christian one,"*’*

447 See 7.37.4 above.

448 Augustine, City of God, 5.23, on the other hand, speaks of 100,000 barbarians being
killed, with no Roman casualties. Zosimus, 5.26, too, speaks of a massacre. Orosius also
suppresses the fact that some 12,000 of Radagaisus’s men were recruited into the Roman
army; see Olympiodoms,/?: 9.

449 Radagaisus was killed on 23 August AD 406.

450 A triumphal arch was built at Rome to celebrate the victory; see CIL VI 1196. Again,
we can see that Orosius has no complaint against slavery per se\ his complaint is not about the
vanquished being enslaved, but about slaves being bought at an unfair price.

451 Orosius deliberately omits the fact that Alaric was an Arian, a heresy that he has previ¬
ously fiercely denounced (see 7.28.23 above), as this would destroy his comparison of the two
enemies of Rome.

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was put off for a short while, in case she should repent of her confusion and
learn to be faithful from what she had experienced.

1 . Meanwhile Count Stilicho, offspring of that effete, greedy, treacherous,
and sorrow-bringing race, the Vandals,"*^^ thought it was not enough to rule
under a ruler and strove by all means possible to substitute as ruler his own
son Eucherius, whom, most historians say even then, while he was a young
boy and held no official post, was planning how to persecute Christians.'*^^

2. It was for this reason that he held Alaric and the entire Gothic race in
reserve to worry and wear down the state, courting him with a secret treaty,
but in public refusing to countenance either war or peace. In fact, Alaric was
humbly pleading for no more than peace on good terms and somewhere to
settle.'^®"^ 3. He also roused up other tribes, openly urging them to take up
arms and wiping away for the first time their fear of Rome’s reputation:
tribes whose numbers and forces were irresistible and who now oppress
the Gallic and Spanish provinces, namely the Alans, Sueves, Vandals, and
also the Burgundians who were stirred up by the movement of these others.

4 . The wretch wanted them to shake the banks of the Rhine and attack
the Gallic provinces in the hope that under these straitened circumstances
he could wrest power from his son-in-law and hand it over to his son, and
that the barbarian tribes would prove as easy to suppress as they were to
spur on.'*^^ 5. When this panorama of high crime was revealed to Honorius
and the Roman army, Stilicho, who had offered the blood of the entire
human race to cover one boy in the purple, was killed by the army that was
quite rightly enraged by his conduct."*^® 6. Eucherius too was killed. He had

452 Again, Orosius shows a marked dislike for barbarians. His hostility to the Vandals may
be due to his personal experience of their depredations in Spain.

453 See PLRE 2 Eucherius 1. Eucherius was born in AD 389 and betrothed to Honorius’s
sister Galla Placidia. Zosimus, 5.34, expressly denies that Stilicho sought illicitly to further his
son’s career, perhaps to counter allegations like the one made here.

454 Stilicho’s willingness to negotiate with Alaric lost him many friends at Rome. His
support for paying Alaric 4,000 pounds of gold in AD 407 (see Zosimus, 5.29) was particularly
damaging.

455 There is no evidence that Stilicho was active among these tribes. His previous success
against Radagaisus probably made his failure to recover Gaul look deeply suspicious in many
eyes.

456 Stilicho was beheaded in Ravenna on 22 August AD 408. For a radically different
assessment of Stilicho from the hostile one given here, see Zosimus, 5.34.

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curried favour for himself by threatening to restore the pagans’ temples and
demolish churches as soon as he began to reign."*” A few of their followers
who had been party to these deep machinations were also punished along
with them. In this way, with minimal effort, the Churches of Christ and a
pious emperor were freed from danger and avenged and the punishment of
but a few men.

7 . However, after such an increase in blasphemy and no sign of repen¬
tance, the long-postponed punishment of the City finally arrived."*^®

1 . Alaric came, besieged, threw into panic, and burst into Rome as she
trembled, but he first gave the order that whoever had fled to the holy places,
above all to the basilicas of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, were to be left
safe and unharmed."*^’ He also told his men that as far as possible, they must

457 Orosius is the only extant source that makes this claim.

458 This one sentence suppresses the period of chaos that broke out after Stilicho’s death.
First, the Roman troops in the north of Italy massacred the families of the barbarian
provoking 30,000 of these to join Alaric; see Zosimus, 5.36. Alaric then invaded Italy and
besieged Rome in the winter of AD 408/9. The siege may have reduced the inhabitants of the
city to cannibalism; see Olympiodorus,/?: 4. Some 40,000 slaves fled to Alaric and there was
an attempted resurrection of pagan rites in the City led by the City Prefect, Gabinius Barbaius
Pompeianus, apparently with the complicity of Pope Innocent I; see Zosimus, 5.41^2, and
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 9.16.3. Orosius could have mentioned this incident, as it
would have helped his theme that Rome was justly punished for backsliding from Christianity.
However, he must have decided that this would be too damaging to his main point - that
Alaric’s attack on Rome was negligible compared to the sacks of the pagan past. Alaric was
finally bought off for 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 of silver, 3,000 of pepper, 4,000 silk tunics,
and 3,000 scarlet-dyed fleeces; see Zosimus, 5.41. After the breakdown of further negotiations,
Alaric once again besieged Rome at the end of AD 409. This time the City, with his blessing,
proclaimed the praefectus urbi, Priscianus Attains (see 7.42.7 below), emperor and appointed
Alaric supreme military commander of the empire, magister utriusque militia; see Zosimus,
6.7. Our sources imply that the Romans were happy to do this and that these events brought
Honorius close to flight to the east (see Zosimus, 6.7-8), facts that Orosius cannot permit
to be known about his hero. In AD 410, Alaric fell out with Attains and had him deposed at
Arimmium; see Zosimus, 6.12. It was at this point that Alaric decided to sack Rome. For a
modem account of this confused period, see Matthews (1975) ch. 11.

459 Orosius’s choice of verb for Alaric’s entry into Rome, mrumpere, ‘to break in’, is
perhaps chosen to deny any question of treachery. Procopius, History of the Wars, 3.2.20-32,
explicitly states that the Visigoths entered the city through treachery and perhaps this was also
true of Zosimus, 6.7, whose account of the sack is lost, but who hints here that the Anicii family
may have betrayed Rome. Alaric entered through the Salarian Gate on 24 August AD 410. For
churches as refuges in the sack, see also Augustine, City of God, 1.2 and 1.7.

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refrain from shedding blood in their hunger for booty.

2. And in order to show all the more that this storming of the City was
brought about by God’s displeasure rather than the enemy’s valour, it came
to pass that in the same way as Lot the Just was taken away from Sodom by
God’s hidden providence, the blessed Innocent, the bishop of the Church of
Rome, at that time had his seat at Ravenna in order that he should not see
the destruction of his sinful people."^™

3. As the barbarians rampaged through the City, it happened that in a
certain convent one of the Goths, a powerful, Christian man, came across
an elderly virgin, who had dedicated her life to God. When he asked her,
politely, for gold and silver, 4. steadfast in her faith, she promised him that
she had a great deal and would soon bring it forth, and brought it forth.
When she saw that the barbarian was astounded by the size, weight, and
beauty of what she had brought out, but had no idea of the nature of the
vessels, Christ’s virgin said to him, 5. ‘These are the sacred vessels of the
Apostle Peter, take them, if you dare, and you will be judged by your act. I
dare not keep them, as I cannot protect them.’ 6. The barbarian was moved
to religious awe through his fear of God and the virgin’s faith, and sent a
messenger to tell Alaric about these matters. He immediately ordered that
all the vessels should be taken back, just as they had been found, to the
basilica of the Apostle 7. and that the virgin and any other Christians who
might join her be taken there with the same degree of protection. They say
that her convent was in the other half of the City, far away from the holy
sites, 8. and so each piece was given to a different individual, and they all
carried the gold and silver vessels openly above their heads, providing a
great spectacle for all to see. This pious parade was protected by drawn
swords on every side,'^'’' 9. and Romans and barbarians joined together
in singing openly a hymn of praise to God. The trumpet of salvation sent
its note far and wide as the City fell, calling out and rousing up even all
those who were in hiding.10. From all sides the vessels of ChrisP®^ came
running to the vessels of Peter - even many pagans joined the Christians,

460 See Genesis, 19.16. Pope Innocent I held office from AD 402^17. Orosius suppresses
the fact that Innocent was in Ravenna as part of an embassy sent from Rome to urge Honorius
to negotiate with Alaric; see Zosimus, 5.45.

461 Orosius intends his reader to recall the Israelites’ crossing of the Red Sea here; see

1.10.15.

462 See Matthew 24.31 (compare the use of Matthew 24.21 at \,pref 15) and Revelation

11.15.

463 i.e. Christians.

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professing, though not possessing, the faith and in this way managed to save
themselves for that time when they would be all the more undone"^®'* - and
the more the Romans gathered here in their flight, the more eagerly the
barbarians surrounded and defended them.

11 . O sacred and ineffable discernment of Divine Judgment! O what
a holy river of salvation, which rose in a small home, and, as it ran its
blessed course to the seats of the saints, piously snatched up wandering
souls in danger and carried them off to the bosom of salvation 12 . O
glorious trumpet of Christ’s army, which, while calling all alike to life with
its sweet music, does not rouse up the disobedient to salvation, but rather
leaves them, devoid of excuses, to death. 13 . This mystery of the parade of
vessels, singing of hymns, and leading forth of the people'^** was, I believe,
like a great sieve through which out of the assembled population of Rome,
just like out of a great mass of corn, living grains set in motion either by
circumstances or by the truth, passed through all the hidden gates of the
city along all the circumference of its walls."''’’ 14 . All those who believed
in their present salvation were received from the granary prepared by the
Lord, while those left, already condemned because of their lack of belief
or disobedience, remained to be burnt and destroyed like dung and straw.
Who can fully understand these miracles or praise them as they deserve?

15 . On the third day after the barbarians had entered the city, they
departed of their own free will.""^® A number of buildings had been set
alight, but not on the scale of the disaster that had occurred in the 700"’ year
from the City’s foundation."'’" 16. For, if I were to recall the Are that the
Romans’ own emperor Nero brought about for his own amusement, it would
be beyond doubt that this second fire, started by an emperor’s dissipation,
could not be likened to this one, brought on by the victor’s wrath."'’' 17 . Nor
ought I to recall the Gauls’ sack of Rome as something similar - they held
Rome, treading on the ashes of the burnt, ruined city for almost a year."'”

464 cf. the more charitable comments of Augustine, City of God, 1.1.

465 A parallel with the ‘oil miracle’ of Augustus, 6.18.34, is intended here.

466 Again, a pai'allel with the Israelites’ Exodus from Egypt is intended here.

467 Orosius has in mind Amos 9.9, where we ai‘e told that God will sieve Israel through the
nations because of her lack of faith, but will still preserve her.

468 An allusion to the parable of the wheat and the tares, Matthew 13.25-30.

469 A parallel with the resurrection is intended here.

470 See 6.14.5.

471 Orosius appears to have elided his great fire of Rome of 52 (50?) BC (see 6.14.4-5 and
7.2.11) with the fire in Rome during Nero’s reign that occurred in AD 64; see 7.7.4-7.

472 See 2.19.7-15.

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18 . And so that no one should doubt that the enemy was allowed to do this
in order to punish the arrogant, debauched, blasphemy of the town, at this
same time the most famous buildings in the City which the enemy was
unable to set alight were destroyed by lightning/’^

1 . And so 1,164 years after the foundation of the City, the City was breached
by Alaric. Although this deed is of recent memory, if anyone were to see the
great numbers of Rome’s population and listen to them, he would think, as
they themselves say, that ‘nothing had happened’, unless he were to learn of
it by chance from the few ruins which still remain from the fire.

2. During the breach, Placidia,'^’'* Prince Theodosius’s daughter, and
sister of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, was captured and married by
Athaulf,''^^ a kinsman of Alaric and, as if Divine Judgment had made Rome
hand her over as a hostage and, as it were, a special pledge of goodwill,
finding herself in an influential marriage to a powerful barbarian was of
great use to the state.'*’*’

3. Meanwhile, two years before the breach of Rome, the Alans, Sueves,
Vandals, and many other tribes with them, were, as I have mentioned, roused
up by Stilicho,'*” crushed the Franks, crossed the Rhine, invaded the Gallic
provinces, and marched straight through them as far as the Pyrenees. They
were halted by this barrier for a time and poured back over the neighbouring
provinces.

4 . While they indulged in an orgy of destruction in the Gallic provinces,'*’*
in the British provinces Gratian, a citizen of that island, usurped power
and was killed.'*’® Constantine, a man from the lowest ranks of the army,
lacking in any ability, and whose only appeal was in his name, was chosen
in his stead.'**** Immediately he had usurped power, he invaded the Gallic

473 See 2.19.15.

474 See PLRE 2 Placidia 4.

475 See PLR£ 2 Athaulfus.

476 Orosius is less than tioithful here: Galla Placidia was captured before the sack of Rome
and was not mamed by Athaulf until AD 413. She then married against Honorius’s wishes. The
wedding took place in Narbonne. For Gallia’s life in general, see Dost (1968).

477 7.38.3^.

478 For a contemporary description of the devastation wreaked in Gaul, see Orientius of
Auch, Commonitorium 2.165-84 = CSEL 16 234.

479 See PLRE 2 Gratianus 3. Orosius omits the previous military usurpation of Mai'cus in
Britain; see Zosimus, 6.3.1. Gratian ruled for four months.

480 See PLRE 2 Constantinus 21 and Drinkwater (1998). The self-styled Constantine III

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provinces where he did great harm to the state, frequently being made a
fool of by the barbarians, who broke the treaties they made with him. 5. He
sent governors"'*' to the Spanish provinces. These were received obediently,
but two young brothers, the noble landowners, Didymus and Verinian, acted
not to usurp the usurper, but to defend themselves and their country for their
lawful emperor against the usurper and the barbarians."'*^ 6. This was made
clear from the order of events, for every usurper plots swiftly, makes his
attempt in secret, and then openly defends his gains. The most important
thing is to be seen wearing the diadem and purple before being known to
have this wish. These two, however, spent a great deal of time gathering
together merely their serfs"*** from their own estates, feeding them at their
own expense, and, with no attempt to hide their intentions, marched to the
passes in the Pyrenees without causing any disquiet.

7. Constantine sent his son Constans"'*"' to the Spanish provinces to fight
them - O, the shame of it! He had been a monk and was made a Caesar
- along with some barbarians with whom he had once made a treaty and
recruited into his service, calling them the Honoriaci.*^^ This was the begin¬
ning of the Spanish provinces’ downfall

8. When they had killed the two brothers who were trying to defend the
Pyrenean Alps with their private army,"'** these barbarians were first granted
permission to plunder the fields of Palencia as a sort of reward for their

began his usurpation in AD 407. Orosius’s sentiments are echoed by Sozomen, Ecclesiastical
History, 9.11. However, Procopius, History of the Wars, 3.2.31, describes Constantine as ‘no
obscure individual’, perhaps suggesting that Constantine the common soldier is a product of
Honorius’s propaganda.

481 Indices.

482 See PLRE 2 Didymus 1 and PLRE 2 Verenianus. According to Sozomen, Ecclesias¬
tical History, 9.11, Didymus and Verinian were kinsmen of Honorius. This fact is possibly
suppressed by Orosius in order to make Honorius’s rule seem more popular in Spain. Orosi¬
us’s defensive tone here suggests that not all Spaniards were content with their emperor.
Sozomen notes that the two did not initially act in concert as Orosius implies, but that later
they combined their forces, attacked Lusitania, and killed many of Constantine’s troops. If
true, these comments also imply that Constantine commanded some support in Iberia prior to
his invasion of the peninsula.

483 Servuli. This is a reference to coloni, labourers tied to the land; see Theodosian Code,
5.17.1. For a discussion of the institution, see Jones (1958) and Carrie (1982).

484 See PLRE 2 Constans 1.

485 For the nature of the Honoriaci, see Matthews (1975) 310 and Kulikowski (2004) 363
n. 30 who argues that their title shows they were regular troops not barbarians.

486 A close pai'aphrase of Virgil, Aeneid, 2.91.

487 The two were killed at the beginning of AD 409 by Constantine’s magister militum, the
Briton Gerontius; see 7.42.4.

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victory, and then entrusted with the task of guarding the Pyrenees and their
passes, this job being taken away from the old and reliable guard composed
of the peasantry.'*** 9. As a consequence, the Honoriaci, loaded down with
plunder and further tempted by the wealth of the province to let their crimes
go all the more unpunished and to have more scope for crime, betraying
their watch over the Pyrenees, opened the passes and let all the tribes who
were wandering through the Gallic provinces into the Spanish provinces
and joined with them.'*** 10. After indulging for a time there in great and
bloody raids and causing destruction of both life and property, things for
which they too now have some regret, they drew lots to divide up their gains
and settled in those parts which they hold to this day.'*^“

1. I would now have the opportunity of saying a great deal about matters
of this kind, save that, according to all men, the secret voice of conscience
speaks only to each man’s mind individually. 2. The Spanish provinces were
invaded and suffered devastation and slaughter. But this is nothing new. For
during these two years while the enemy’s sword raged, they endured from
barbarians what they had suffered at the hands of the Romans for some
200 years and what, indeed, they had received at the hands of rampaging
Germans for nearly twelve years in the reign of the emperor Gallienus.'*®*
3. Still, what man who fears God’s judgment and knows himself, his deeds,
and, indeed, his thoughts, would not confess that everything he has suffered,
he has suffered justly, and, in fact, endured little? Or, on the other hand, if
he does not know himself or fear God, how could he argue that these things
were not justly done and of little account?

4. Since this is so, God’s clemency through the same piety, which He
had long foretold, brought it about, in accordance with His Gospel where
He continually gives the advice: When they persecute you in one city, flee

488 For the issue of whether a limes existed in Spain at this time, see Arce (1982) 66-69
and 165-68.

489 The invasion began on a Tuesday in late AD 409, 28 September or 12 October; see
Hydatius, Chronicle, 15.42.

490 The Hasding Vandals settled in north-west Galicia, the Siling Vandals in Andalusia, to
which they gave their name, (V)andalusia, the Alans in Lusitania and Carthaginiensis, and the
Sueves in Southern Galicia.

491 From AD 409 until the treaty of AD 411. Orosius’s account is paralleled by that of
Hydatius, Chronicle, 40. For Spain’s suffering under Roman rule, see 5.1.6. For her suffering
at the hands of the Germans, see 7.22.7.

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to another that anyone who wished to go out and leave could use the
barbarians themselves as paid helpers and defenders. 5. The barbarians
themselves willingly offered to do this and, although they could have killed
everyone and carried off all their belongings, they demanded a paltry fee to
pay for their services and the task of carrying over the goods. Very many
took advantage of this, 6. but those who insolently disbelieved the Gospel of
God or, with twice as much insolence, did not even listen to It, and did not
give way to God’s wrath, were rightly seized and destroyed by that wrath
when it fell upon them.'^^^ 7. However, immediately after these events, the
barbarians foreswore their swords and turned to the plough,"'*"^ and cherished
the remaining Romans as allies of a kind and friends, with the result that
some Romans who prefer freedom in poverty to trouble and taxation under
Rome can be found among them.'*®’

8. Even if the barbarians were sent into the territory of Rome for this
purpose alone - that the Churches of Christ throughout the east and west
alike should be filled with Huns, Sueves, Vandals, Burgundians, and a count¬
less host of believers of different races - God’s mercy should be praised and
extolled, seeing that, albeit with some loss on our part, so many peoples
came to recognise the Truth Which they would have been unable to find
without this opportunity. 9. For what loss is it to the Christian who yearns
for the life eternal to be taken from this world at any time or in any way?
Or what gain is it for a pagan who has hardened himself against the Faith in
the midst of Christians, if he drags out his days a little longer, since he who
gives up hope of conversion will be doomed to die in the end?

10. Now because God’s judgments are ineffable and we are neither
able to know them all nor explain what we know of them, I would briefly
state that the chastisements of God’s judgment, in whatever way they are
inflicted, are rightly suffered by those who know Him and rightly suffered
by those who know Him not.

492 In fact this is only said once in the Gospels: at Matthew 10.23. Orosius may well have
thought the verse had particular meaning for his own life.

493 Orosius appears to be justifying his own flight from Spain here. Given that he wrote
the Histories in Africa, the Donatist controversy that centred on what was the appropriate
response by Christians to persecution, and which was still a live issue in the region, may also
have been in his mind.

494 cf. Isaiah 2.4 and Micah 4.3.

495 See Salvian, The Guidance of God {De Gubematione Dei), 5.21-3. Hydatius, Chron¬
icle, 41, on the other hand, describes the division of Spain into various areas of barbarian
influence and the ‘enslavement’ of the Spaniards there.

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1. 1,165 years after the foundation of the City, the emperor Honorius, seeing
that with so many usurpers opposing him, he was unable to do anything
against the barbarians, ordered that these usurpers be suppressed first. Count
Constantins was placed in charge of this campaign.'*®® 2. It was then that the
state finally realised what advantages there were to having a Roman leader
again and how much she had suffered in the long period when she had been
a subject to barbarian counts.'*®’ 3. Count Constantins advanced into Gaul
with his army and trapped, took, and executed the emperor Constantine in
the city of Arles.'*®*

4. At this point, to speak about the string of usurpers as briefly as possible,
Constantine’s count, Gerontius,'*®® a man more wicked than treacherous,
killed Constans, Constantine’s son, at Vienne, putting in his place a certain
Maximus.®“ Gerontius was then killed by his own troops.®*** 5. Maximus was
stripped of the purple, forsaken by his Gallic troops, who crossed to Africa
and were then summoned back to Italy, and now lives as a poor exile among
the barbarians in Spain.®**’ 6. After these events, lovinus, the highest-ranking
man in the Gallic provinces, began a usurpation which failed as soon as it
was attempted.®**® His brother, Sebastian, chose but one thing: to die as a

496 See PLRE 2 Constantius 17. Constantius went on to mairy Galla Placidia who bore
him the future Valentinian III. He was elected Augustus in AD 421, but died the same year.

497 A veiled attack on Stilicho.

498 AD 411. ‘Constantine’ is the usurper Constantine III, see 7.40.4. Olympiodorus,/in
16, and Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 9.15, have a very different account of Constantine’s
death. According to these historians, Constantine fled to an oratory and was ordained as a
priest. He was then sent with his son, Julian, to Honorius at Ravenna, having been promised
his life, but the emperor had the two treacherously murdered before they arrived at the town.
Constantine’s head was exhibited on a stake at Ravenna on 18 September AD 411; see Consu-
laria Constantinopolitana, s.a. 411.

499 See PLRf 2 Gerontius 5.

500 See PLRE 2 Maximus 4. Maximus was proclaimed emperor in Tarragona; see Sozomen,
Ecclesiastical History, 9.13.1. His precise status is unknown. Sozomen, describes him as an
oikeos, while Olympiodorus calls him a domesticus of Gerontius. Gregory of Tours, History of
the Franks, 2.9, simply describes him as one of Gerontius’s clientes.

501 According to Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 9.13, Gerontius committed suicide after
being trapped by mutinous soldiers.

502 See Prosper, Chronicle, a. 415 = PL 27 709. Maximus was to lead a second usurpation,
probably in 419. He was defeated by Asterius, the Count of the Spanish provinces, and paraded
at Ravenna in Honorius’s tricennalia celebrations in 422. See the Ravenna Annals, s.a. 422 and
Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, s.a. 422.

503 See PLRE 2 lovinus 2. Orosius is being disingenuous here. Jovinus’s reign lasted for

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usurper - for he was killed as soon as he was declared emperor/^

7. What should I say of the wretched Attalus for whom it was an honour
to be killed amid usurpers and a blessing to die? Alaric laughed at his puppet
and watched an imperial farce in which he made, unmade, remade, and
reunmade this emperor almost more swiftly than it takes to tell this tale.^°® 8.
Nor is it surprising that this wretched man should be mocked by this pomp
and circumstance when his cipher of a consul, Tertullus,^®® dared to say in
the senate-house, ‘I shall address you, conscript fathers, as consul and high
priest, for I hold one of these offices and hope for the other.’ But he placed
his hope in one who had no hope and was surely cursed for putting his hope
in a man.^°’ 9. Attalus was carted off, like a hollow statue of an emperor,
by the Goths to the Spanish provinces. He was captured while leaving there
by sea to an unknown destination and taken to Count Constantine. He was
then brought before the emperor Honorius, who had his hand cut off, but
spared his life.^“®

two years. A high-bom Gallo-Roman aristocrat Jovinus proclaimed himself emperor in Mainz,
relying on the support of the Burgundian king, Gundahar (see PLRE 2 Guntarius) and the Alan
king, Goar (see PLRE 2 Goar); see Olympiodorus,/): 17. A result of this usuipation was that the
Burgundians moved across the Rhine into Roman territory establishing their capital at Worms.
The emperor Honorius later ‘officially’ granted them this land; see Prosper, Chronicle, a. 416 =
PL 27 709. Orosius mentions the Burgundian incursion at 7.32.11-13 above. For a discussion
of the usurpation, see Drinkwater (1998).

504 Jovinus proclaimed his brother Sebastian co-Augustus in AD 412. Contrary to what is
implied here, he was not killed until the following year. Orosius suppresses the fact that this
usurpation was not crushed by Roman forces, but by the Visigoths under Athaulf who killed
Sebastian and captured Jovinus after besieging him in Valence {Chronica Gallica 452 69).

505 See PLRE 2 Attalus 2. The Visigoths deposed Attalus in AD 410, but proclaimed him
emperor for a second time in AD 414. He was soon discai'ded by them again; see Olympi-
odorus,/j^ 13.

506 See PLRE 2 Tertullus 1. Tertullus was consul in AD 410. According to Zosimus, 6.7.4,
his appointment was a popular one.

507 As opposed to placing it in God. Tertullus’s wish to be pontifex has sometimes been
seen as a sign that Attalus wished to lead a pagan revival. Until his accession Attalus had been
a pagan, but he allowed himself to be baptised by an Arian bishop on becoming emperor;
Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, 9.9.1. It seems unlikely therefore that a full-blooded pagan
revival was intended. However, many of his senatorial allies were pagan and Tertullus was
perhaps expressing a hope that the new regime would be more tolerant than that of the perse¬
cuting Honorius. It is odd that Orosius does not make more of Attalus’s paganism or Arianism.
According to Paul the Deacon, 13.1, Tertullus expressed a wish to become emperor to the
Senate and was subsequently executed.

508 This punishment had perhaps been threatened against Honorius by Attalus or his minis¬
ters; see Zosimus, 6.8, and Olympiodorus,/?: 13. Attalus was exiled to the island of Lipara in
AD 416.

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10. Meanwhile, Heraclian, who had been dispatched as Count of Africa
while Attains exercised his ghostly reign, vigorously defended Africa
against the governors sent there by Attains and became consul.^® 11. His
promotion made him arrogant and he made his private secretary,^'® Sabinus,
his son-in-law. He was a clever, hard-working man, who would have been
called wise, had he used his mental energies for peaceable ends.^" 12. It
was with him that Heraclian acted when he suspected that he was in some
sort of danger and, after illegally holding up the com supply from Africa, he
sailed to Rome with a huge fleet, certainly with one that seemed unbeliev¬
ably large in our days. 13. Eor he is said to have possessed 3,700 ships, a
number which history does not record even Xerxes, the famous king of
Persia, Alexander the Great, or any other king as possessing. 14. But as
soon as he had disembarked and started towards Rome with his troops, he
encountered Count Marinus and fled in terror.®'^ Seizing a ship, he returned
to Carthage alone, where he was immediately killed by a group of soldiers.
His son-in-law, Sabinus, fled to Constantinople from where he was brought
back after a period of time and sentenced to exile.

15. The destruction of this entire list of outright usurpers and insubor¬
dinate dukes was, as 1 have said, earned by the outstanding piety and good
fortune of the emperor Honorius and was executed by the great speed and
energy of Count Constantins. 16. In those days, under Honorius’s leader-
ship^*'* and with Constantius’s help, peace and unity was deservedly restored
to the Catholic Church throughout Africa and the Body of Christ, which
is what we are, was healed, with the schism brought back to the fold. The
tribune Marcellinus was put in charge of carrying out this sacred command.
Prom the outset, he showed himself a prudent, energetic man and most eager
to pursue everything that was good. Count Marinus, either out of jealousy

509 See PLRE 2 Heraclianus 3. The governorship of Africa was Heraclian’s reward for
having killed Stilicho in person, Zosimus, 5.37. Honorius in exile at Ravenna ordered him to
stop grain and oil supplies from Africa to Rome. Heraclian became consul in AD 413, just after
this he rebelled against Honorius.

510 His domesticus.

511 See PLRE 2 Sabinus 4. For comments on Sabinus, see Jerome, Letters, 130.7.10.

512 For Marinus, see PLRE 2 Marinus 1. According to Hydatius, Chronicle, 56, Heraclian
was defeated at Otricoli on the edge of Rome.

513 For Heraclian’s rebellion, see Oost (1966).

514 cf. 7.37.11.

515 See PLRE 2 Marcellinus 10. Orosius’s remarks about Marcellinus’s ‘pursuit of the
good’ refer to the Council of Carthage held in May AD 411. The ‘schism’ is a reference to
the Donatist church which had broken away from the Catholics in AD 311 over a dispute

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or after being bribed with gold, it is unclear which, had him executed at
Carthage.^'® Marinus was immediately recalled from Africa, reduced to the
rank of a private citizen, and dismissed to be punished or to look to the
repentance of his conscience.

1. 1,168 years after the foundation of the City, Count Constantins halted at
the city of Arles in Gaul and doing what had to be done with great energy,
drove the Goths from Narbonne and forced them to depart into Spain,
taking special care to cut them off from any trade by sea and stopping them
importing foreign goods.^'^ 2. At this time, Athaulf was the ruler over the
Gothic tribes.^'* He became king in Alaric’s place, after the breaching of
the City and Alaric’s death. As I have mentioned, he married the emperor’s
captive daughter, Placidia.^'* 3. It has often been heard, and was proved
by his end, that he was clearly a keen partisan of peace and chose to fight
loyally for the emperor Honorius and use the Goths’ might to defend the
Roman state.

4.1 myself heard a devout, sober, and serious man from Narbonne who
had served with distinction under Theodosius, telling the most blessed priest

concerning the legitimacy of Caecilian’s ordination as bishop of Carthage. The Council was
composed of 284 representatives from each side of the dispute and was presided over by
Marcellinus (to whom Augustine dedicated the first books of his City of God). Marcellinus
ruled in favour of the Catholics and on 30 January AD 412 an imperial edict, Theodosian
Code, 16.5.52, outlawed the Donatist church. Nevertheless, despite persecution (for which see
Augustine, Letters, 133) Donatism survived until the Arabs overran North Africa in the eighth
century. For the conference acta, see Cancel (1974) and for comments on it, Tilley (1991). For
a detailed account of the schism, see Frend (1952) and Tilley (1997).

516 Marcellinus was executed in September AD 413. Orosius is our only source for
Marinus being responsible for his execution.

517 The winter of AD 414/415. The Vandals made good the Goths’ food shortage, selling
them grain at highly inflated prices - see Olympiodorus,//^ 29.

518 Athaulf established his capital at Bai'celona which appears to have sun'endered peace¬
fully to him.

519 See 7.40.1. Orosius does not see the union, as did his fellow Spaniard Hydatius, Chron¬
icle, 57, as a fulfilment of the prophecy in Daniel 11.6, that a queen of the south would marry
a king of the north.

520 Athaulf’s philo-Roman attitudes can be seen in his wedding. Both he and Placidia were
dressed in Roman style and classical-style wedding hymns, epithalamia, were sung for the
couple, first by Attalus, the deposed emperor, and then by two other Romans, Rusticius and
Phoebadius. The pair had a child, significantly named Theodosius, who died in infancy and was
buried in a silver coffin near Barcelona; 01ympiodorus,/ii: 24, 26.

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Jerome in Bethlehem, a town in Palestine, that he had been a great friend of
Athaulf in Narbonne and had learnt this about him, often before witnesses:
that when he was too full of confidence, strength, and cleverness,5. he
was accustomed to relate that at first he earnestly had wanted to obliterate
the name of Rome and make the Romans’ land the Goths’ empire in both
word and deed, so that there would have been, to put it in everyday speech, a
Gothia where there had once been Romania and that he, Athaulf, would now
be what Augustus Caesar had once been. 6. But when, after long experience,
he had proved to himself that, because of their wild barbarism, the Goths
were completely unable to obey the law, and because he believed it wrong
to deprive a state of laws (without which a state is not a state at all), he
chose at least to seek for himself the glory of having restored and extended
the Roman Empire by the might of his Goths and, since he could not be her
supplanter, to be remembered by posterity as the author of Rome’s renewal.

7. It was for this reason that he strove to avoid war, and for this reason
that he strove to love peace. He was influenced to carry out everything
required to set things in good order by the persuasive advice of his wife,
Placidia, without a doubt a woman of keen intellect and clearly virtuous in
religion.^^^ 8. It is said that he was killed in the Spanish city of Barcelona
through the treachery of his own people, while making every effort to make
and offer peace.

9. After Athaulf, Segeric was made king by the Goths, but although he
was, through God’s judgment, inclined to peace in the same way, he was
nonetheless killed by his own men.^^"^

10. He was succeeded on the throne by Vallia whom the Goths elected
precisely to break the peace, but who was ordained by God precisely to
strengthen it.®^^ 11. He was especially terrified by God’s judgment because
in the previous year when a great band of Goths had mustered themselves
under arms and attempted to cross in their fleet to Africa, they had been
caught up in a storm twelve miles from the Straights of Cadiz and died

521 A euphemism for being drunk?

522 See Oost (1968).

523 Athaulf was murdered in August AD 415. According to Olympiodorus, fr. 26, the
king was killed by a retainer named Dubius who was determined to avenge his old master.
According to Jordanes, History of the Goths, 31, Athaulf was killed by a Goth named Everwulf
whom he had angered by sneering at his small size.

524 See PLRE 2 Segericus. Segeric mled for only seven days. Orosius suppresses Segeric’s
murder of Athaulf’s children despite them being under Church protection and his maltreatment
of Galla Placidia; see Olympiodorus,/?: 26.

525 See 2 Vallia.

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a wretched death.^^® 12. He was also mindful of the disaster suffered in
Alaric’s time when the Goths had tried to cross over to Sicily and, under the
eyes of their comrades, been carried off by a storm and pitiably drowned.
He therefore made a highly favourable peace with the emperor Honorius,
giving him nobles of the highest lineage as hostages.He also restored the
emperor’s sister, Placidia, who had lived in honour and unmolested at his
court, to her brother.®^® 13. He put himself in danger for Rome’s security,
attacking the rest of the tribes that had settled in Spain - he did the fighting,
but conquered for Rome.^^“ 14. Moreover, all the other kings, those of the
Alans, Vandals, and Sueves were disposed to make treaties on the same
terms with us. They sent ambassadors to the emperor Honorius, ‘Make
peace with us all, and take hostages from us all,’ they begged. ‘We ourselves
will hght and perish, but we will conquer for you, it would be an everlasting
boon for your state, if we were to perish, one and all.’^^' 15. Who would
believe this, if it were not conhrmed by the facts? At the present, every day
we learn from frequent, reliable reports that in the Spanish provinces these
people wage war and slaughter each other, and that Vallia, the king of the
Goths, in particular wishes to make peace.

16. For this reason, I would happily grant that this Christian epoch
be freely criticised, if anything from the beginning of the world down to
the present day can be shown to have been concluded with similar good
fortune. 17. We have shown, 1 believe, and demonstrated almost as much
by pointing, as by my words, that innumerable wars have come to an end,
a great number of usurpers have been put down, and the most savage tribes
have been defeated, restrained, surrendered, and emptied of their strength
with the minimum of bloodshed, no battles, and hardly any killing. 18. All
that remains is for our critics to repent of their efforts, blush at the truth,

526 i.e. the Straits of Gibraltar. Orosius is our only source for this incident, for a discussion
of which see Kulikowski (2004) 169.

527 At the end of AD 410; see Olympiodorus,/?: 15. Orosius perhaps does not discuss the
incident at length because Alaric is said to have been turned back by a pagan enchanted statue
which would have suggested to his readers that paganism could be efficacious.

528 The treaty was struck in AD 416.

529 See 01ympiodorus,/r. 31.

530 cf. 1.16.3 and 1.17.3. Vallia defeated the Alans and Siling Vandals in AD 417—18.
Orosius is ever the optimist: a more cynical historian might have thought that the Goths, having
failed to cross to Africa, were intent on securing Spain for themselves.

531 This speech is a fabrication by Orosius.

532 For these wai's, see Hydatius, Chronicle, 52, 55, 59-61; Gallic Chronicle of 511, 33,
35-6; and Sidonius Apollinaris, Poems, 2.362-65.

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and believe in, fear, love, and serve the One, True God for Whom all things
are possible and learn that His every act, even those that they think wrong,
is good.

19. In accordance with your instructions, most blessed father Augustine,
1 have set down, with Christ’s aid, the lusts and punishment of sinful men,
the conflicts of our age, and the judgments of God from the beginning of
the world to the present day, that is over 5,618 years. I have done this as
briefly and as clearly as possible, separating the years which through the
nearer presence of Christ’s grace are Christian ones from the previous chaos
of disbelief. 20. So now I am secure in the enjoyment of the one thing for
which 1 ought to long - the fruit of my obedience.^^^ As for the quality of my
little works, you, who commissioned them, must see to that - if you publish
them, they must be approved of by you, but if you destroy them, you will
have disapproved of them.

533 l,pref. 2.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Unless an English title is in common use, Latin titles have been retained
for ease of reference. Standard works from the classical period which have
only a slight bearing on Orosius’s work have not been listed with editions
or translations. These works can be found in the Loeb Classical Library.
The reader is referred to the Loeb Classical Library or the Oxford Classical
Dictionary (3'“* edn) for available editions of these authors. Works with a
particular relevance to Orosius have been listed with a modern English
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416 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

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418 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

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Leipzig, 1962-64; trans. H. B. Dewing (5 vols), Loeb Classical Library:
London and New York., 1914-28.

Prosper, Chronicle, ed. Th. Mommsen, MGH Auctores Antiquissimi 9,
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Pmdentius, Harmartigenia, ed. M. Lavarenne in Prudence (vol. 2), Paris,
1945; trans. H. J. Thomson in Pmdentius (vol. 1), Loeb Classical Library,
London and Cambridge, MA, 1949.

Ptolemy, Geography.

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Rufinus, Ecclesiastical History, ed. E. Schwartz and Th. Mommsen in
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Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo, ed. J. Vessereau and E. Prechac, Paris,
1961; trans. J. Wight Duff and A. M. Duff in Minor Latin Poets (vol. 2),
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Sallust, The War against Catiline.

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Severus of Minorca, Epistola ad Omnem Ecclesiam de Virtutibus ad
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Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History, ed. J. Bidez and G. C. Hansen, Berlin,
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SECONDARY READING

Amagro-Gorbea, M. et al. (1999), Las Guerras Cdntabricas, Santander.

Anderson, A. R. (1932), Alexander’s Gate, Gog and Magog, and the
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Barbero, A. (2007), The Day of the Barbarians, New York.

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Harvey, P. D. A. (1996), Mappa Mundi: the Hereford World Map, London.

Hay, D. (1977), Annalists and Historians: Western Historiography from the
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Heather, P. (1991), Goths and Romans 332-489, Oxford.

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Lupher, D. A. (2003), Romans in a New World'. Classical Models in
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Picard, G. C. and Picard, G. (1968), The Life and Death of Carthage, London.

Pohlsander, H. (1980), ‘Philip the Arab and Christianity’, Historia 29,
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Scullard, H. H. (1970), Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician, Bristol.

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Spedicato, E. (2008), ‘Homer and Orosius: a Key to Explain Deucalion’s
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Trompf, G. W. (1979), The Idea of Historical Recurrence in Western
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LUP_Orosius_09_Biblio.indd 431

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INDEX

Abydus 91
Abraham 18, 34, 322
Achaea 27, 28, 43, 54, 116, 132, 159,
211,266, 339
Achaean 211
Achaeans 199, 210
Achillas 296, 297
Achilles 361, 362
M. Acilius 225
M. Acilius Glabrio 197
Acroceraunian Range 40, 43
Actium 301, 306, 307
Adam 34
Adama 52
Adaspis 137
Adherbal 231
Adiabene 332
Helena of 332
Adiabeni 349
Adrastae 138
Adri 139

Adriatic Gulf 43, 48
Adriatic Sea 46, 48
Adrianople 9
Aebutius 93
Aecides 149
Aedui 285
Aegean Sea 42, 48
Aegades177
Aelia (= Jerusalem) 345
Aelian 360
R Aelius Paetus 194

L. Aelius Tubero 293
‘Aemilian’ (= Laelian) 357
Aemilian 354

M. Aemilius Scaurus (suffect consul 108

BC) 235

L. Aemilius Catulus 181

M. Aemilius Lepidus (consul 175 BC)

199

M.. Aemilius Lepidus (consul 137 BC)
217

M. Aemilius Lepidus (consul 125 BC) 226
M. Aemilius Lepidus (consul 78 BC) 254
M. Aemilius Lepidus Porcina 215, 217
Mamilius Aemilius Mamercinus 95
Q. Aemilius Papus 156
L. Aemilius Paulus (consul 216 BC) 186,
216

L. Aemilus Paulus (proconsul 190 BC)

198

L. Aemilius Paulus (consul 168 BC) 200

M. Aemilius Paulus (consul 255 BC) 174
Aeneas 67, 154

Aequi 93,94,117
Aesernia 242
Aesculapius
snake of 15
stone of 144
temple of 204, 267
Afellas 167

L. Afranius 256, 292, 293, 298
Africa 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 30, 37, 44, 45, 46,
47, 132, 140, 146, 166, 167, 171,
172, 174, 175, 177, 193, 194, 196,
201, 202, 209, 211, 226, 227, 231,
246, 249, 252, 255, 259, 262, 293,
298, 300, 304, 313, 321, 361, 362,
363, 374, 381, 382, 393, 394, 395,
408,410,411,412
African Kingdom 73, 74
African Sea 48, 226
Africans 165, 167, 191, 203, 232
Agammemnon 241

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433

Agathocles (son of Lysimachus) 152
Agathocles of Sicily 158, 166, 167, 168
Agenor 147

Agesilaus 111, 112, 113
Agesis 139

Agrigentum 69, 169, 191
Agrigentines 170
Agrippa 304, 305, 306, 311, 314
Agrippina (= Cologne) 342
Alamanni 356, 362, 375, 382
Alania 42

Alans 386, 400, 404, 413
Alaric 12, 30, 76, 396, 399, 400, 401,

402, 404, 409
Alba 79, 200, 254, 263
Alban Hills 119
Albania 42, 271
Albanians 40, 271
Alcetas 148, 150
Alcibiades 98, 99, 100, 101, 102
Alesia 285

Alexander (brother of Demetrius) 152
Alexander II of Macedon 123
Aexander (son of Demetrius Tryphon)

215

Alexander (brother of Olympias) 129, 130
Alexander of Epirus 123, 136
Alexander the Great 28, 36, 37, 51, 66,
119, 123, 128, 130-142, 145, 146,
147, 149, 150, 151, 166, 252,313,
321,386,410
Alexander Romance 25
Alexander Severus 351, 352
Alexandria 4, 37, 134, 296, 298, 306, 308,
329, 338, 344, 362, 371
Alexandria-on-the-Tanais 137
Alfonso X 25
Algidus 93
Allectus 361
Allobroges 29, 229

Alps 43, 184, 192, 230, 235, 236, 292,
337, 356, 388, 390, 391
Cottian 44
Pennine 43
Pyrenean 405
Amandus 360

Amazons 27, 64, 65, 70, 137

empire of 65
land of 64
Ambiani 276, 286
Ambiorix 281, 283, 286
Ambira 139
Ambivariti 278

Ambronae/Ambrones 234,235, 236

Ambrose 395

Amisus 269

Amiternum 199

Ammedera 395

Amomum 41

Ammon/Hammon (oracle of) 16, 58
Amosis 56
Amulius 74, 263
Amyntas (father of Philip II) 123
Amyntas (Macedonian general) 129, 137,
147

Amphictyon 57
Amulius 74, 263
Ancus Marcius 79
Andicavi 278
Andragathius 388
Androgius 281
Andro 167
Androcottus 151
Anio 118, 189
Antichrist 368
Antioch 291,305,343,383
‘Antiochus’ 291

Antiochus (father of Seleucus) 147
Antiochus I of Commagene 304
Antiochus III 196, 197, 198
Antiochus IV 19
Antiochus VII 225
Antigonus the Jew 304
Antigonus Monophthalmus 146, 148, 149,
150, 151
Antiope 65

Antipater 147, 148, 149, 152
Antistius 312
P. Antistius 249
Antium 185, 247
Antoninus Pius 345
A. Antoninus Verus 346
G. Antonius (consul 63) 265, 273
G. Antonius 293 (brother of Antony)

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L. Antonius 301
Antony 292, 301-309, 330
Antyrus 86
Apamia 269
Apennines 155, 184
Aper 360
Apis 56
Apollo

Pythian 294
temple of 234
Apollonia 150, 309
Apollonians 128

‘Lucius’ (= Sextus) Apuleius 308
L. Apuleius Satuminus 238, 239, 240
Apulia 43, 158, 186, 233
Aquileia 352, 388
G. Aquilius Floras 170
Aquitania 43, 44, 279, 357
Aquitanian Gulf 44, 311
Arabia 52, 146
Blessed 38
Arabian Gulf 38, 40
Arachosia 38
Araxes 85, 271, 305
Arachossians 147
Araxes 85,271,305
Arbatus 67, 74, 75, 76
Arbis 38
Arbitio 391

Arbogastes 9, 389, 390, 392
Arcadius 13, 116, 387, 393, 404
Arcadians 114, 115
Archelais 351
Archelaus 266, 267
Archidamus 114
Archimedes 189
Archous Pellasos 147
Ardalio 394
Ardea 80
Ardennes 284
Areans 147
Aremulus 20, 69
Argentaria 9, 382
Argos 27, 61, 103, 148, 159
Argives 54, 56, 61
Ariarathes (= Ariarates IV) 200
Ariarathes (= Ariarates V) 224

Ariaratus 148
Aristotle 137
Arianism 9
Arians 12
Aricia 247
Ariminum 182, 292
Ariobarzanes 265
Ariovistus 275
Aristides 344
Aristobulus 274
Aristonicus 29, 224
Arles 43,408,411
Armenes 195

Armenia 38, 39, 40, 224, 265, 270, 306,
335, 346
Lesser 271
Portals of 40
Armenians 147
Arpi 184

Arretium 181, 240
Arridaeus 149

‘Arrius’ (=Arius) 371, 373, 379, 384

Arruns 81

Arsaces 214

Artabanes 306

Artabanus 92

Artaces 271

Artaxerxes 28

Artaxerxes II 105, 110, 111, 114
Artaxerxes III 119, 120
Artemidora 90
Aruba 124
Arudes 276
Arusia 159
Arvemi 229, 285
Arzuges 46
Asclepiodotus 361
Asculum 241, 242, 244
Asia 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 48, 51, 61, 64, 65,
67, 70, 72, 74, 83, 87, 92, 99, 100,
101, 105, 111, 112, 113, 115, 129,
135, 136, 146, 148, 152, 196, 200,
211, 224, 245, 262, 266, 267, 291,
296, 300, 306, 308, 328, 335, 343,
344,347, 356, 363,

Greater 151
Minor 39

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INDEX

435

Assyria 27, 38, 86, 141, 346
Assyrian Kingdom 74
Assyrians 33, 51, 56, 62, 67, 68, 74,
83, 141

Astrix, Mount 47
Astura 312
Astures 44, 311, 312
Astyages 68
Atalante 106
Ateas 128
Athanaric 379, 386
Athaulf21,404,411,412
Athens 27, 28, 43, 57, 63, 90, 94, 97, 100,
102, 103, 110, 112, 113, 124, 125,
128, 223, 266, 302, 315, 344
Athenian Empire 72
Athenians 27, 62, 67, 70, 71, 72, 87,
90, 91, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101,
Kingdom of Athenians 101, 102, 103,
104, 106, 112, 113, 115, 124, 125,
126, 128, 132, 147, 148. 330
G. Atilius Bubulcus 179
A. Atilius Calatinus 171
G. Atilius Regulus (consul 257 BC) 171,
172, 173, 174, 176

G. Atilius Regulus (consul 225 BC) 181
G. Atilius Regulus Serranus 176
Atlas, Mount 37, 39, 44, 47
Artebates 276, 286, 379
Atreus 62
Atriani 147
Attains 76, 409, 410
Attains (father of Eumenes) 222
Attains (Macedonian general) 129, 137,
197

Attica 43, 94, 103,311
Q. Attius Varus 293, 298, 299
Atuatuci 276, 281
Augusta (= Vibia Sabina) 345
Augustine 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13,
23,24, 27, 30,31, 117,262,414
Augustus 13, 20, 29, 34, 120, 121, 180,
208, 262, 294, 301-325 passim,
328, 330, 333, 334, 340, 342, 344,
345, 346, 348, 351, 352, 353, 354,
355, 361, 376, 384, 412
Aulerci 279, 286

Aurelian 358, 359, 367
Aurelius of Carthage 5
G. Aurelius Cotta 175
M. Aurelius Cotta 293
Autrigonae 311
Autololes 47
Autun 374

Aventine Hill 95, 229
Avieniatae 150
Avitus of Braga 3, 5

Babylon 10, 20, 21, 27, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77,
83, 84, 85,86, 140, 141, 151,214,
225, 314, 316, 320, 321, 322, 342
kingdom of 73, 74, 75,

Babylonia 38
Babylonians 76, 84, 147
Bactria 147

Bactrians 41,51
L. Baebius Dives 198
Baetica 255
Bagras 172
Balbinus 352
Balearics 29, 44, 49, 229
Balearic Sea 44
Baleus 56
Baronins 2
Barcelona 49, 412
Basillus 293, 302
Bastemae 362
Batavians 45
Bede 25
Bedriacum 337
Belgae 276
Belgida 256
Bellovagui 276, 286
Belus 33, 322
Bessi 269
Bethlehem 412
Bibulus 274, 293
Bituitus 229, 230
Biturigo 284
Blessed Isles 37
Bocchoris 58
Boadicea 8

Bocchus 231,233,252
Boeotia 91, 92

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436 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Boeotian Empire 71
Boeotians 113, 115, 126,210
Bogud 252

Boii 195, 196, 197, 275
Boiorix 237
Bononia 218
Bonosus 359
Boreum

promontory 42
river 42
Bosphorus 272
Bosphorans 314
Braga 2, 3, 4, 5
Braulio 1, 2
Brennus 106

Brigantia 44, 45, see also Corunna
Brigitio 380

Brundisium 43, 303, 306, 307, 308
Britain 8, 43, 44, 45, 253, 278, 280, 328,
331, 335, 350, 361, 363, 368, 380,
387

Britains 281
Britons 280, 328
Bruttium 274

Bruttii48, 136, 145, 192
Decimus Brutus (consul 138 BC) 228
D. Junius Brutus 217
D. Junius Brutus (liberator) 278, 301,

302

M. Junius Brutus 254
Brutus 299, 301,302, 303
Buccia 214
Bucephala 138
Bulla Regia 252

Burgundians 21, 22, 380, 400, 407
Busiris 61, 208
Byrsa 203
Byzacium 46, 47

Byzantium 42, 127, 128, 269, 339

Caesorix 237
Cadiz

islands of 37, 44
straits of 37, 44, 47, 412
Cadmus 62

L. Caecilius Metellus (quaestor 216 BC)
187

L. Caecilus Metellus (consul 251 BC)

175, 178

L. Caecilius Metellus (consul 123 BC)

227

L. Caecilius Metellus (consul 142 BC) 213

L. Caecilius Metellus (propraetor in Sicily

70 BC) 270

Q. Caecilius Metellus Creticus 270
Q. Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus

(consul 143 BC) 210, 211,212,

223

‘Caelius’ (= G. Coelius Caldus) 234

M. Caelius Rufus 292
Caesorix 237
Cadmus 62
Caemani 276
Caenapum 284
Caerosi 276
Caesonius 298
Calabria 117
Calagurris 256
Calama 231

Cales 161
Caleti 276, 286
Callinicus 362
Callisthenes 137
Caligdamana 37

Caligula 325, 328, 329, 330, 333
Calocaecus 372
Calpe 47

L. Calpumius Bestia 230

M. Calpumius Flamma 171

L. Calpumius Piso (consul 133 BC) 223

L. Calpumius Piso, (consul 112 BC) 234

Gn. Calpumius Piso 313, 314

Q. Calpumius Piso 218

L. Calpumius Piso Fmgi Licianus 336

Calypso (island of) 46

Cambyses 86

Camerina 171

Camillus 28, 106, 117

F. Camillus Scribonian 331
Campania 156, 187, 189, 190, 245, 249

Campanians 120, 181
Campanius 250
P. Candidas 308

G. Caninius 286, 287

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INDEX

437

Cannae 186, 192, 216
Cantabrians 44, 219, 279, 311
Cantabrian Ocean 45
Cantabrian Wars 29, 311
Canusium 79

Caparronia (Vestal Virgin) 163
Capena185

Capitol 93, 107, 228, 238, 239, 244, 245,
248, 299, 337, 348, 353, 358
Capitoline Fasti 18

Cappadocia 38, 39, 64, 125, 136, 147,

148, 200, 224, 265, 271, 346, 375
Cappadocians 148
Capraria 394
Capsa 231

Capua 188, 190, 258, 293
Caracalla 21, 351
Caralitani 49
Caranus 321
Carausius 361
C. Carbo Avina 249
Caria 182
Carisius 312
Carmel, Mount 337
Camuntium 347
Camutes 287
Carpathian Sea 48
Carpathus 48
Carpi 362

CaiThae 40, 290, 351, 362
Carrinas 249, 252
Carsatii 54
Cartagena 44, 190

Carthage 5, 6, 11, 19, 28, 29, 33, 73, 100,
119, 134, 163, 165, 166, 167, 172,
186, 193, 194, 202, 203, 204, 205,
206, 210, 222, 227. 314, 321, 382,
410,411

Carthago Magna 47
Council of 5
Kingdom of 73
Julian of 33

Carthaginians 119, 140, 159, 160, 161,
163, 164, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170,
171, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 179,
180, 188, 192, 194, 202, 203, 204,
205, 227

Carthalo (Carthaginian general) 191
Carthalo (priest of Hercules) 164
Carinus 360
Carus 360
Caspian Gates 40

Cassander 146, 147, 149, 150, 151, 152
Cassiopa 43
G. Cassius 258

G. Cassius (liberator) 299, 301, 302, 303,
308

L. Cassius 234
‘Publius’ Cassius 292

G. Cassius Longinus 200

M. Curius Dentatus 145
Cassovellaunus 281
Castor 273

Castores 337
Catabathmon 37
Mountains 46
Catiline 29, 269, 274
Catina 96, 97, 229
Catti 313
Catulus 236
Q. Catulus 251

Caucasus 37, 38, 40, 41, 137, 147
gates of 42
Cathippus 41
Cattheni 138
Caucasus, Mount 40, 147
Caucasus range 40
Caudine Forks 130, 131,219
Cecrops 57

Celtiberians 44, 188, 197, 201, 219

Cenomanni 195

L. Censorinus 202, 203

Centenius Penula 187

Cephalenia 43

Cerdo 345

Ceres, rites of 272

Cesena 192

Chalcedon 267

Chaldeans 67, 75

Chalearzum 37

Chariades 97

Chedrosians 147

Chersonese 128

Cherusci 313

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43 8 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Choarasmae 137

Christ 9, 10, 13, 18, 20, 21, 29, 32, 33,

34, 35, 53, 57, 121, 190, 208, 294,
301, 309, 310, 316, 320, 321, 322,
323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 329, 330,
332, 334, 336, 337, 343, 347, 353,
354, 364, 366, 368, 373, 376, 378,
379, 381, 382, 386, 391, 393, 394,

397, 401, 402, 403, 407, 410, 414
Christian Church 340

Churches 368
Christian Epoch 328, 413
Christian Faith 153, 316, 318, 376, 384
Christian God 380
Christian people 116
Christian Religion 66, 77, 253, 264, 336,
344, 345

Christian ruler 76, 127, 264, 353, 368,
372, 373, 378, 384, 389, 392
Christian soldiers 346, 381
Christian Times 53, 69, 76, 117, 120, 168,
205, 227, 336, 364, 384, 389, 414
Christians 9, 10, 12, 13, 22, 57, 77, 190,
202, 205, 209, 294, 310, 317, 323,
325, 326, 330, 332, 333, 334, 336,
341, 343, 344, 345, 346, 350, 351,
352, 353, 354, 355, 359, 362, 364,
366, 368, 370, 376, 379, 380, 381,

398, 400, 402, 407
Chrysorhoas 41
Cibalae 370

Cilicia 39, 134, 136, 257, 339, 375
Cimbri 234, 235, 236, 238, 291
Cimbrian War 259
Cinna 246, 248, 249, 259
Circessus 353
Cirta 193, 232
Claodicus 237

Claudius (emperor) 329, 330, 331, 332
App. Claudius (consul 264) 169
App. Claudius (consul 143) 212
App. Claudius (consul 79) 252
App. Claudius (decemvir) 94, 95
App. Claudius Censorinus 293
Claudius II Gothicus 358
M. Claudius Marcellus (consul 331 BC)
122

M. Claudius Marcellus (consul 222 BC)
182, 183, 187,189,190,191
M. Claudius Marcellus (consul 196 BC)
196

M. Claudius Marcellus (consul 183 BC)
198

M. Claudius Marcellus (consul 51 BC)
292

Claudius Nero (consul 207 BC) 192
Ap. Claudius Fulcher 256

P. Claudius Fulcher 176

Q. Claudius Quadrigarius 196, 210, 250
Claudius Unimammus 212
Cleochares 269

Cleopatra 298, 306, 307, 308

Cleopatra (daughter of Philip II) 129

Cleophyle 138

Clipea 171, 174

Clitus 137

Clodius 258

Clodius Albinus 350

CloeliaSl

‘Clusinum’ (= Clusium) 106
Cimmerians 70

Cimmerian Sea 39, 40, 42
Coche 360
Cocheba 345
Codrus 67

G. Coelius Caldus 234
Cofides 138
Cochis 271
Colchians 40

CollineGate 159, 189,250
Cologne 359, see also Agrippina
Colophon 267
Colossae 335
Colossus 182
Commagene 38, 339
Commodus 8, 346, 348, 349
Condurses 276
Conon 101, 111, 112, 113
Consentia 258
Constantine (Count) 409
Constantine the Great 9, 10, 30, 127, 361,
363, 368, 369, 370, 372, 374
Constantine II 370, 372, 373
Constantine III 404, 405, 408

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INDEX

439

Constans 372, 373

Constans (son of Constantine III) 405,

408

Constantinople 9, 13, 28, 37, 42, 116,

127, 386,410

Constantins II 9, 372, 373, 374, 375
Constantins (Connt) 408, 410, 411
Constantins Chloms 361, 363, 368
Cordoba 25
Corfinnm 292
Corfn 293, 306
Corinth 43, 148,210,211
Corinthian bronze 211
Corinthian Gnlf 43
Corinthian vases 211

Gn. Cornelins Asina (consnl 260 BC) 170
P. Cornelins Asina (consnl 221 BC) 183
Gn. Cornelins Dolabella (consnl 81 BC)
240

P. Cornelins Dolabella (consnl 283 BC)
145

P. Cornelins Dolabella (consnl 44 BC)
293, 294, 302
G. Cornelins Gallns 307
Gn. Cornelins Lentnlns (consnl 201 BC)
194

Gn. Cornelins Lentnlns (consnl 146 BC)
204, 210

Gn. Cornelins Lentnlns (consnl 72 BC)
258

L. Cornelins Lentnlns Crns 296
L. Cornelins Lentnlns Marcellinns 295,
296

Gn. Cornelins Scipio 184, 187, 190
L. Cornelins Scipio (consnl 259 BC) 170

L. Cornelins Scipio Asiaticns 251

P. Cornelins Scipio (consnl 211 BC) 189
P. Cornelins Scipio (consnl 218 BC) 183,
184, 187, 190

P. Cornelins Scipio Aemilianns 201, 202,
203,219, 220, 221,225
P. Cornelins Scipio Aemilianns (Lepidns’s
son) 254, 259

M. Cornelins Scipio Africanns 184, 186,

187, 190, 193, 194, 197, 202, 228
P. Cornelins Scipio Nasica Corcnlnm 201,
202

P. Cornelins Scipio Nasica Serapio 222,
223

P. Cornelins Scipio Nasica (son of Serapio
& consnl 111 BC) 230
Correns 286
Corsica 48, 49, 170
Cornnna 2, 3, 4, see also Brigantia
Corycns 257
Cosconins 257
Cossns 313
Cossnra 252, 259
Cothon 204
Cotta 283
Cotys 200
Cremera 107
Cremona 195
Crete 27, 48, 63, 270
Cretan Sea 43, 48
Crispns 370, 371
Critolans 211
Crixns 253, 258
Croesns 84

Ctesiphon 342, 357, 360, 377

Cnmanns 332

Cyclades 48

Cydnns133

Cyme 343

Cypms 39, 47, 111, 296, 339, 344, 372
Cyrenaica 46

Cyrene 148, 167, 307, 344
Cyms the Great 27, 68, 75, 83, 84, 85, 86,
164, 320, 322

Cyms the yonnger 100, 101, 105
Cythera 48
Cyzicns 268, 349

Dacia 42,315,356
Dacians 313, 341
Dacnsa 38

Daedalian Monntains 138
Dahae41, 137

Dalmatia 42, 43, 254, 257, 331, 360
Dalamatian Wars 260
Dalmatians 313
Dalmatins 372
Danans 27, 61
Dancheans 147

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440 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Daniel (book of) 19
Danube 42, 43, 87, 199, 313, 356, 358,
382

source of 43
Dante 25
Dara 39

Dardania 43, 257
Dardanians 62
Dardanus 62
Darius 86, 87, 88
Darius II 99, 100, 102, 105, 165
Darius III 133, 134, 135, 136
Dastracus, Mount 271
David 341

Decemviri 28, 181, 244
Decius 353, 354, 355, 367
Delos 223

Decius Mus (consul 340 BC) 121
Decius Mus (consul 295 BC) 142
Deiotarus 268
Demaratus 88

Demetrius (son of Philip V) 195, 199

Demetrius Poliorcetes 150, 152

Demetrius I Soter 214, 215

Demetrius II Nicator 215

Demochas 304

Deucalion 27, 57

Devil 168, 373

Diablintes 278

Diadumen 351

Diaeus 211

Diana (Taurian) 208

Didius Julianus 349, 350

Didymus 405

Diocletian 30, 360, 361, 362, 363, 369
Diodotus Tryphon 215
Diogenes 266
Dionysius of Syracuse 102
Dionysius Exiguus 18
Diopolis 56
Diospolis 5
Diurpanus 341
Dolabella 302
‘Publius’ Digitius 197
Domitian 340, 341, 342, 366
Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 122
BC) 229

Gn. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Marian
general) 259

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus (consul 94 BC)
249

L. Domitius Ahenobarbus 292

M. Domitius Calvinus 255

Gn. Domitius Calvinus Maximus 145

M. Domitius Calvinus 225

Domnacus 287

Dorus 152

Drangae 137

Draptes 287

Drepana 177

Drusus (brother of Tiberius) 312, 313,
325, 380

Drusus (son of Tiberius) 326
Ducentius 374
Duero 220
G. Duilius 170
Dyrrachium 292, 293

Earthquake 9, 13, 28, 32, 95, 105, 116,
138, 152, 182, 185, 272, 324, 327,
328, 335, 339, 343, 363, 366, 373,
378

Ebora 13, 116

‘Eborones’/Eburones 276, 282, 283

Ebro 212

Eburovices 279

Ebusus 49

Ecbatana 225, 271

Eden, garden of 8

Edessa 351

‘Eduses’ (= Sedusii) 276
Egypt 4, 14, 21, 27, 30, 36, 37, 38, 39, 46,
55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64,
71, 86, 111, 114, 115, 119, 120,
134, 135, 136, 146, 148, 151,200,
208, 209, 252, 296, 298, 306, 307,
323, 324, 332, 344, 349, 361, 362,

366, 381
Lower 39, 40
Upper 39, 40

Egyptians 55, 56, 59, 60, 365, 366,

367, 368

Egyptian religion 86
Egyptus 61

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INDEX

441

Elea 343

Elegabalus (Aurelius Alexander) 351
Eleusis 54, 103
Elis 77

Elissa (Dido) 163
Empire

of Alexander of Epirus 136
of Alexander the Great 138
Amazons’ 65
Athenian 27, 72, 97
of Attains 222
Babylonian 19, 21, 85
Boeotian 71
Carthaginian 19
Christian 24
of the East 75, 393
Eastern Roman 9
Goths’ 412
Greek 19, 129
Macedonian 132, 135
Medo-Persian 19
of Ninus 74
Persian 19, 86, 135
Roman 2, 17, 19, 21, 22, 24, 30, 66,
181, 253, 254, 262, 254, 262, 263,
264, 291, 310, 313, 315, 319, 320,
321, 322, 325, 330, 331, 336, 346,
349, 354, 355, 356, 360, 361, 363,
366, 372, 376, 378, 388, 390, 393,
396,412
Successors’ 153
Sicilian 158
Eoae 41

Epaminondas 112, 114, 115, 123
Ephesus 65, 196, 197, 265, 342
Epidaurus, snake of 144
Epirotes 159

Epirus 123, 129, 136, 149, 152, 156, 158,
168, 295, 306
Erycina 177
Eteocles 62
Ethiopia 51,57

Ethiopian Desert 37, 39
Ethiopian Ocean 46, 47
Ethiopians 47, 60
Gangine Ethiopians 47
Nomadic Ethiopians 47

Etna, Mount 29, 96, 105, 218, 226, 229
Etruria 79, 82, 142, 184, 196, 274

Etruscans 81, 118,119, 142. 143, 145,
161, 182, 242
Euboea 43
Gulf of 293
Hollows of 293
Euboean talent 177
Eucherius 400
Eudoxius 379
Euergetae 137
Eugenius 9, 390, 392
Eumachus 267

Eumenes of Cardia 147, 148, 149
Eumenes of Pergamum 197, 222
Eumenes II 200

Euphrates 38, 40, 83, 270, 271, 290, 342,
353

Europe 25, 30, 36, 37, 42, 43, 45, 46, 65,
105, 146, 152, 196, 211, 262, 300
Eurydice (mother of Alexander II) 123
Eurydice (wife of Arridaeus) 149
Eurylochus 137
Eurymedon 97, 98
Eusebius 14, 18
Eutropius 15, 342, 352
Euxine Sea 37, 39, 42, 51, 136, 146
Evacoras 101
Evangelists 31, 327
Evemerius 2
Exipodra 272

Fabii 28, 82, 107

Q. Fabius Ambustus 106, 107, 131
Fabius Buteo 183
Fabius Censorinus 183
G. Fabius Hadrianus 249
Q. Fabius Labeo 198
Q. Fabius Maximus Allobrogicus 230
Q. Fabius Maximus (Caesar’s legate) 286,
287

Q. Fabius Maximus Cunctator 186, 187
Q. Fabius Maximus Ebumus 235
Q. Fabius Maximus Gurges 15, 144, 158,
169

Q. Fabius Maximus Rullianus 142, 144
Q. Fabius Maximus Servilianus 213, 214

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Q.Fabius Maximus Vermcosus 191
Q. Fabius Pictor 181

M. Fabius Vibulanus (consul 480 BC) 82
Fabricius 158
Faliscians 117, 178, 185
Famine 55, 56, 79, 82, 91, 94, 202, 324,
332, 333, 339, 364
Fannius 267, 268
Faustus Sulla 298
Fesulanian Hills 398
Fidenae 79, 95, 326
Fidenates 95
‘Firmus’ (= Furius) 312
Firmus 381, 382
G. Flaminius Nepos 182, 217
G. Flaminius 197
Quinctius Flaminius 195
G. Flavius Fimbria 249, 267
Flood 27, 32, 54, 57, 178
Florian 359, 367
Floras 15
Formiae 160

Franks 361, 379, 390, 404
Fratafemes 147
Fraucus 243
Frigidus 9
Fructuosus 2
Fulvia 303

L. ‘Fulvius’ (= L. Furius Purpurio) 195
Gn. Fulvius Centumalus 181,

C. Fulvius Flaccus 223

Gn. Fulvius Flaccus 188, 189, 191

M. Fulvius Flaccus 226, 228
Q.Fulvius Flaccus 182, 190
Ser. Fulvius Flaccus 218

M. Fulvius Nobilior (consul 189) 197,
198

Ser. Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior 174

Furnius 306

P. Furius 239, 240

G. Furius Placidus 175

L. Fursidius 251

Fuscus 341

Gabii 80

A. Gabinius 273, 274, 297
G. Gabinius 243

Gaesati 181, 182
Gaetuli 46, 313

Gallia Placidia 404, 411, 412, 413
Gaius Caesar 323
Gaius Marcius 119
Galatia 198, 343, 377
Galautes 47
Galba 335, 336
Galicia 2, 3
Galicians 217

Gallaecia44, 45,219,311,312
Gallia Belgica 42, 43
Gallic Sea 43, 44, 49
Gallic Wars 29, 179
Gallienus 355, 357, 406
Gallograecia 198

Gallograeci 198, 268
Gallus 375
Gandaridae 41
Gangaridae 138
Ganges 37, 41
Ganymede 62
Garamantes 46

Gaul 9, 29, 43, 44, 45, 192, 234, 253, 255,
259, 275, 277, 279-287, 289, 291,
292, 302, 313, 328, 336, 342, 347,
350, 357, 359, 360, 362, 363, 369,
374, 387, 389, 408,411
Cisalpine 181, 254, 274
Further 181
Long-haired 275
Narbonensis 43, 44, 284, 360
Transalpine 274

Gallic provinces 356, 359, 360, 363,
369, 375, 380, 382, 400, 404, 406,
408, see also Lugdunensis
Gauls 12, 22, 28, 29, 44, 106, 107, 108,
110, 118, 119, 140, 142, 145, 179,
182, 187, 197, 230, 236, 237, 258,
276, 277, 279, 282, 283, 284, 285,
286, 288, 289, 313, 357, 380, 389,
390, 403
Allobrogian 229
Cisalpine 179
Insubrian 182
Salassian 212
Senonian 106, 145

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443

L. Gellius Publicola 258
Gemonian Stairs 337
Gennadius 2, 5
Gentius of Illyria 200
L. Genucius Aventinensis 117
G. Genucius Clepsina 158, 160
‘Genuus’ (= Ingenuus) 357
Germanicus 325, 326
Germany 42, 43, 275, 280, 313, 328, 336,
342, 347, 352, 380
Germans 275, 276, 279, 283, 313,

314, 325,348, 356, 375,406
Gerontius 408
Gesonae 139
Geta 350
Getae 65
L. Giganius 240
Gildas 25

Gildo 0, 393, 394, 395
G. Glaucia 239

God 9, 10, 13, 17, 23, 24, 32, 33, 50, 53,
54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 66, 73, 74,
76, 77, 105, 108, 116, 141, 162,
164, 168, 189, 190, 201, 209, 261,
262, 263, 264, 265, 272, 273, 301,
316, 318, 321, 325, 327, 334, 336,
338, 356, 357, 365, 367, 373, 380,
384, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393,
394, 395, 397, 398, 399, 402, 406,
412,414

Church of 338, 350
Gospel of 407
people of 59, 365,367, 368
servants of 394
temple of 324
wrath of 370
Golden House 343
Gomorrah 52, 54
Gordian III 352
‘Gordies’ (= Gordium) 133
Gospels 153, 324, 406, 407
Goths 9, 12, 22, 25, 30, 53, 65, 76, 108,
141, 145, 208, 289, 321, 356, 358,
372, 279, 382, 383, 384, 386, 392,
396, 397, 398, 402, 409, 411, 412,
413

Visigoths 6

Gothia21,42,412

Gratian 9, 379, 381, 382, 384, 387, 388,
404

Gratidius 245
Great Sea 36, 37, 45, 49
Greece 27, 28, 61, 63, 67, 70, 72, 92, 97,
98, 99, 103, 110, 112, 114, 115,
124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 136,
148, 152, 156, 174, 195, 198, 244,
249, 266, 292, 302, 303, 306, 308,
333, 343, 356, 370
Greeks 62, 67, 88, 91, 92, 110, 114,
132, 173, 268, 309, 346, 380
Greeks, alliance of 67
Gregory of Tours 25
Gylippus 97, 98
Gyndes 83

Hahenna 47
Hadrian 344, 345
Hadmmentum 47, 194
Hafj al-Qup 25
Hagis 136
Halestris 136
Halia 107, 117
Halicarnassus 90
Hamilcar the Rhodian 166
Hamilcar (general in 2nd Punic War) 195
Hamilcar (opponent of Agathocles) 167,
168

Hamilcar Bai-ca 171, 172, 174, 176, 180
Hammon (oracle of) see Ammon
Hannihal 13, 155, 176, 179, 183-189,
191-199,216, 236, 258
Hannihal (son of Gisco) 169, 170, 171
Hanno (admiral) 170, 171, 174, 177
Hanno (general in 1st Punic War) 167,
174

Hanno (general in 2nd Punic War) 191
Hanno (opponent of Agathocles) 167
Hanno (orator 179
Hanno (revolutionary) 165
Hanno (son of Hamilcar) 193
Harpalus 68

Haruspices 213, 214, 215
Hasdruhal (Hannihal’s brother) 187, 188,
191, 192

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Hasdmbal (commander in chief at end of
2nd Punic War) 193
Hasdrubal (general in 252 BC) 175
Hasdrubal (general in 2nd Punic War) 188
Hasdrubal (general in 3rd Punic War)

203, 204

Health, temple of 160
Hebrews 60, 368
Helen, rape of 66
Helena of Adiabene 332
Helena, concubine of Constantins Chlorus
363

Helena, town in Spain 374
Helice 13, 116
Heliogabal, temple of 351
Hellespont 39, 49
Helvetii 275
L. Helvius 233
Henna 223
Heraclea 156
Heraclian 410
Heraclitus 223
Hercules 65, 138, 139
Columns of 37
Phoenician 164, 231
Hercules (Macedonian prince) 150
Hercyion 111
Herod 304, 323
Heros 5

Hesperium, Mount 47
Hiempsal 231
Hierapolis 335
Hieron of Syracuse 169
‘Hiertas’ (= larbas) 252
Higden, Ranulf 25
Hirtuleius 255, 256
Himelcho 164
Himera 96
Hippo 4, 47
Hippolyte 65
Hircylides 111
Hispania
Citerior 44
Ulterior 44

Hister 42, 199, see also Danube
Histri 183
Histriani 128

Hirtius 301
Hobsbawm 25
Holy Land 5, 6
Homer 66
Honoriaci 405, 406
Honorius 5, 9, 22, 389, 393, 398, 400,
404,408,409,410,411,413
Horodes

of Albania 271
of Parthia 290, 291
Hortensius 293
Callus Hostilian 354, 367
G. Hostilius Mancinus 215, 216, 217
Hostilius Tullius 79, 180
Huns 41, 382, 386, 397, 398, 407
Hydaspes 38, 147, 215, 346
Hydatius 4
Hyrcania 120

Hyrcanians 41, 42, 68, 136, 147
Hyrcanus 274

Iberian (Caucasian) 40, 271

Iberian (western) sea 49

Ibn Khaldun 25

Icarian Sea 48

Ilerda 255

Ilium 267

Illyria 146

Illyrian War 257

Illyrians 124, 181, 195, 200, 313
Illyricum 132, 200, 274, 293, 306, 358,
362, 363, 374, 375, 377
Tllyrius’ 148
Imavus, Mount 37, 41
India 38, 51, 138, 141, 147, 151, 215
Indians 141,313,314
Indus 38, 140, 147,215
Indutiomarus 282, 283
Innocent I 402

Insubres 195, see also Gauls, Insubrian
Ionia 100

lonians 87, 90
Ionian Sea 43
Iphicrates 113
Ireland 44, 45
Isauria 39, 344
Isaurians 257

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445

Issican Gulf 47
Isere 235
Israelites 365
Isthmus, the 43
Istria 42, 43
Itacanor 147
Italica 255

Italy 28, 43, 48, 67, 78, 95, 119, 123, 132,
136, 140, 142, 156, 159, 160, 168,
170, 174, 175, 176, 181, 186, 187,
188, 191, 192, 194, 195, 200, 207,
235, 236, 240, 253, 259, 260, 263,
277, 284, 288, 292, 303, 304, 306,

328, 333, 347, 350, 356, 363, 366,
374, 387, 388, 394, 397, 398, 399,
408

Ituraeans 273
lugarium district 291

Janus (gates of) 34, 120, 121, 179, 308,
310,311,312,315,322, 324, 326,
339, 352

Jerome 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 18, 20
Jerusalem 5, 6, 273, 290, 304, 320, 324,

329, 332, 338, 339, 345, 376
Jews 20, 21, 58, 60, 119, 274, 304, 324,

327, 328, 329, 332, 337, 338, 339,
341, 344, 345, 349, 365, 366, 384
St John 341, 342
John of Jerusalem 5
Jordan 53
Jordanes 1, 25
Joseph 55, 56, 57, 59
Josephus 332, 338, 339
Jovian 30, 377, 378
Jovinus 408
Juba 293, 298
Judaea 323, 332, 338
Judgment

divine 74, 76, 190, 265, 273, 324, 355,
356, 368, 378, 384, 393, 396, 397,
398, 399, 403, 404, 406, 407, 412,
414

final 10, 33, 368
Jugurtha 230, 231,233
Julian the Apostate 368, 375, 376, 378,
386

Julian of Carthage 33
Julia Domna 351
Julia Mamea 351

G. Julius Caesar 15, 29, 66, 274-288, 291-
303, 308, 322, 330-332
G. Julius Caesar (Octavian’s uncle) 309
L. Julius Caesar 241, 242, 302
L. Julius Caesar (uncle of Octavian) 302
Sextus Julius Caesar 240
L. Junius Brutus Damaspius 249
‘Decimus Junius’ (= M. Junius Pera) 187
G. Junius 176
Jupiter 62

Hammon 134, 157
temple of 320

Justin 15, 20, 55, 58, 59, 163, 164
Justin Martyr 345
Juvencius 203
Juventius 243

Kaisergeschichte 15

Labienus 239

T. Labienus 280, 282, 283, 298, 299
Lacedaemona 71

Lacedaemon 98, 99, 103, 114, 156, see
also Sparta
Lacedaemonia 125

Lacedaemonians 70, 71, 87, 88, 92,

97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 110,

111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 124,

126, 128, 136, 173, 195, see also
Spartans
Laches 97
Laelius 193
P. Laetorius 251
Lamachus 97
Lampeto 64
Lancia 312
Laodicea 335

Laomedon of Mitylene 146
Larissa 124
Laser 41

Latins 27, 69, 74, 79, 119, 121, 240
Latium 80
Latobogii 275
Lauro 255

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Lazarus 5
Ladder, The 39
Lapiths 63

Gn. Lentulus Lena 258
Leonnatus 146
Leosthenes 148
Lemnian women 62
Leonidas 15, 88, 89, 92
Lepcis Magna 46, 349
Lepcis Parva 194

Lepidus (triumvir) 302, 303, 304, 305,
309
Leuceni 45
Lexovi 278

Lixovii, see also Lexovi 279
Liber 57
Libitina 335
Libumian Gulf 43
Libumian Islands 43
Libya 39, 46, 115, 146, 344
Libyan Sea 46, 48
Libyo-Egyptians 40
Libyoethiopians 46
Licinius (emperor) 369, 370, 371
Licinius (son of above) 371
M. Licinius Crassus (triumvir) 258, 289,
290, 304, 307, 315

P. Licinius Crassus (consul 205 BC) 193
P. Licinius Crassus (consul 171 BC) 200
P. Licinius Crassus (consul 131 BC) 224
P. Licinius Crassus (son of the triumvir)
277, 278, 279, 290

L. Licinius Lucullus (consul 151 BC) 201

L. Licinius Lucullus (consul 74 BC) 258,

267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 290, 291
Ligurian Gulf 43, 49
Ligurians 197, 198
Lilybaeum48, 175, 176, 177
Lipara 170, 171,226
Liparae islands 304
Livius Drusus 240, 241

M. Livius Salinator 192
Livy 15, 16, 142
Locris 106

Locusts 13, 29, 59, 226, 227, 367
Loire 44, 278
‘Lollius’ 251

Lot 402

Lucian of Kaphar Gamala 5
Luceria 292
Lucretia 80

Lucania 123, 129, 136, 159, 369
Lucanian Mountains 175
Lucanians 123, 136, 145, 188, 241,
242

Q. Lucretius 292
Q. Lucretius Ofella 251
Lugdunensis 43, 44
Lugius 237
Luna, temple of 228
Lusitania 212, 255, 256

Lusitanians 198, 201, 202, 212, 214,
217, 299

Lutatii, tomb of 251
G. Lutatius Catulus 177
Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul 241) 178
Q. Lutatius Catulus (consul 78) 254, 269
Lycia 146, 257, 339
Lycterius 287
Lydia 84, 85, 99, 100, 146
Lydians 84

Lyons 314, 350, 374, 387
Lysias 103
Lysimachia 152

Lysimachus 146, 150, 151, 152, 153
Lysander 100, 102, 112

Macedon 11, 19, 28, 74,316
Kingdom of 73, 74, 321
Macedonia 42, 43, 87, 123, 125, 128, 146,
148, 149, 150, 152, 156, 188, 191,
200, 201, 203, 244, 254, 257, 269,
303, 356, 358
Kingdom of 145, 147, 151
Macedonian Gulf 43
Macedonian War 153, 195, 200, 256
Macedonians 104, 123, 124, 129, 132,
133, 135, 137, 138, 139, 145, 147,
148, 149, 150, 195, 200
Macedonians’ Empire 132, 135
Machares 272
Ophilus Macrinus 351
Maecenas 334
Maeonia 268

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447

Maeotid Marshes 36, 42
Magnentius 374
Magi 86
Magius 267
Magona 5
Mago 184
Mago Barca 191
Mainz 352, 357
Publicius Malleolus 237
Malta 171
Malua 47

Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus 268
Mamertium 223
Mamertines 169
Mandi 136
A. Manlius 178
G. Manlius 234
Gn. Manlius 82
M. Manlius 202
L. Manlius Torquatus 295, 298
L. Manlius Vulso Longinus 172, 176
Ti. Manlius Torquatus (dictator 353 BC)
118, 121, 122

Ti. Manlius Torquatus (consul 235 BC)
179

Ti. Manlius Torquatus (consul 224 BC)
182

Titus’ Torquatus 295, 298
Marathon 87, 88
Marcelli 274
Marcellinus 410
Marcion 345

L. Marcius Philippus 230
Marcomanes/Marcomani 276, 313, 347

Marcomanic War 347
Marcus Aurelius 8, 13, 346, 347, 348, 351
Marcus Curtius 118
Mardonius 90, 91, 92
Marinus 410, 411

G. Marius 29, 231, 232, 233, 235, 236,
237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 243, 245,
246, 247, 248, 249, 259
G. Marius the Younger 249, 250, 251, 252

M. Marius 267, 268, 269
Marius (usurper) 357

Q. Marcius Philippus 198
Q. Marcius Rex 230

Marrucini 241, 244
Marpesia 64, 65

Marseilles 198, 234, 292, 293, 369
Marsi 241, 242, 243
Mascezil 9, 394, 395
Masinissa 193, 200, 203, 232
Massagetae 40
Mauretania 174, 381, 382
Caesariensis 47
Sitifensis 47
Tingitana 47
Mauretanian Sea 49
Maxentius 369, 370
Maximian Herculius 360-365, 369, 370
Maximian Galerius 361-3, 369
Maximin Daia 363, 367, 370
Maximin the Thracian 352
Maximus 387, 388, 389, 390
Maximus (usurper in Tarragona) 408
Mazeus 164

Medo-Persian Empire 19
Medullius, Mount 312
Memarmali, Mount 41
Q. Metellus Scipio 298
G. Mucius Scaevola 81

P. Mucius Scaevola (consul 175 BC) 199

Q. Mucius Scaevola (consul 95 BC) 249
Mulvian Bridge 349, 370

L. Mummius 204, 210
Munda 299
Mursa 374
Musolani 313
Papius Mutilius 241
Mutina 301
Mycale, Mount 92
Mylae 304
Myrina 343
Myrtoan Sea 43
Myrsa 357
Mysia 268

Nabateans 38
Nabis 195

Nabuchodonosor, see also
Nebuchadnezzar 75
Namnetes, see also Nemetes 278
Narbonne 411,412

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Nai'bonenses 43
Narseus 361, 362
Nathabres 46
Nearchus 146
Nebrot 84

Nebuchadnezzar, see also
Nabuchodonosor 19
Nemetes, see also Namnetes 276
Neoptolemus 148
Nepotian 374

Nero 8, 333-336, 338, 341-343, 346, 350,
352, 354, 355, 359, 362, 364, 366,
403

Nerva 342, 385
Nervii 276, 281,283, 284
Nicias 97, 98

Nicaea, Bithynian 371, 378
Nicaea, Indian 138
Nicomedes II 224
Nicomedes IV 265
Nicomedes of Paphlagonia 265
Nicomedia 267, 363, 372
Nicolpolis 271
Nile 39

Ninus 20, 27, 33, 34, 51, 74, 76, 84, 322
Nisibis 270, 377

G. Norbanus Bulbus 249, 250, 251
Noricum 43
Noricans 313
Nuchul 39
Numa 120, 179

Numantia 2, 22, 215, 219, 220, 221, 222
Numantines 214-216, 220, 221
Numerian 360

Numidia 47, 49, 174, 200, 203, 225, 230,
231,252

Numidian Gulf 49
Numidians 193, 230, 232
Numitor 74, 78
A. Nunius 239
Nyssa 138

Obsidius 244

Ocean 3, 4, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 44, 45, 47,
49, 138, 139, 140, 193, 234, 277,
278, 291,311,312,315, 328, 331,
379

Atlantic 47
British 43
Cantabrian 45
Chinese 38, 42
Eastern 37, 41
Ethiopian 46, 47
Hesperian 47
Indian 37, 38
Northern 42
Sarmatian 36
Second 311
Southern 37, 46
Oceanus 5

Octavian, see Augustus
Octavius (consul 87 BC) 246
Octavius (tribune 133 BC) 222
Octavius Libo 293
Octodurus 277
Odenatus 357, 358
Oedipus 62
Oenomaus 258
Offiussa 54
Ogygius 54

Olympias 123, 124, 129, 149, 150

Olympus, Mount (Asian) 56, 198, 257, 269

Olympus, Mount (Greek) 39

Olynthus 91, 126

L. Opimius 228, 229

G. Oppius 196

Opuntii 343

Oretani 44

Orithyia 65

Oriti 343

Oricolum 80
L. Orestes 226
Orkney 45, 331
Orgetorix 275
Origen 1,4, 351,352
Osages 291
Oscobares, Mount 41
Osismi 278
Ostia 247
Otho 336, 340
Otto of Freising 25
Ottorogorra, city 41
Ottorogorra, river 38, 41
Q. Ovinius 308

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INDEX

449

Oxyarches 147

Pachynum 48
Pacoms 304
Pacuvius 277
Paelignia 274
Paeligni 241

Palaephatus, see also Palefates 63
Palchonius 5

Palefates, see also Palaephatus 62
Palencia 255, 405

Palestine 4, 38, 39, 52, 290, 324, 325,
345,412

Palinums, promontory of 175
Pamphylia 146, 254, 257
Pamphylian Sea 47
Pamphylian War 260
Pandion 62
Panormus 175

Pannonia 42, 43, 306, 348, 370
Pannonian provinces 356, 380
Pannonians 313, 314
Pantheon 343
Paphlagonia 147, 224, 265
G. Papirius Carbo 246, 249, 250, 251,
252, 259

L. Papirius Murgilanus Cursor 131, 132
L. Papirius Cursor 143
Parapameni 137, 147
Parchoatras, Mount 40
Parethonium 37, 46, 307
Parimae 137

Parmenion 129, 134, 137, 166
Parnassus, Mount 57
Paropanisades 41
Parrhasians 54
Parthana, Mount 41
Parthia 29, 34, 38, 271, 289, 290, 291,
346, 376

Parthian Expedition 375
Parthian Kingdom 271
Parthian War 346, 360
Parthians40, 121, 137, 147, 214, 225,
290, 291, 304, 315, 335, 346, 349,
351, 353, 356, 360, 375, 376, 377
Parthyenae 41
Passyadrae 41

Parethonium 37, 46, 307
Patmos 341
St Paul 8, 334, 401
Puasanias I of Sparta 127
Pausanias II of Spaif a 113
Pausanias, Macedonian general 137
Pausanias, Macedonian noble 130
Pelagius 5

Pelagian controversy 4, 22
Peloponnesians 67, 71, 97
Peloponnesian Gulf 306
Peloponnesian War 28, 96
Pelops 62
Pelorus 48
Pelusium 296, 307
Peneus 296
Pentapolis 46, 52
Penthesilea 65
Perdiccas 146, 148, 150
Pergamum 224, 267
Pericles 72
Perillus 69

M. ‘Perpenna’ (= M. Perperna) 224
M. ‘Perpenna’ Vento (= M. Perperna
Vento) 253, 256, 259
Persepolis 135
Perses 321

Perseus, mythological 61,62
Perseus, son of Philip V 199, 200
Persia 28, 38, 68, 87, 115, 134, 164, 410
Persian Empire 86
Persian Expedition 132
Persian Kingdom 135
Persian Gulf 38
Persian War 71

Persians 9, 28, 61, 68, 83, 86, 87, 89,
90, 92, 99, 102, 105, 110, 114,
120, 129, 133, 134, 135, 142, 147,
157, 304, 352, 355, 357, 361, 362,
372, 373, 377, 386
Helvius Pertinax 349, 350
Perusia 301

Pescennius Niger 349, 350

St Peter 8, 330, 331, 334, 336, 401, 402

Petra 273

M. Petreius 292, 298
Petronius (Praetorian prefect) 342

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Peucestes 147
Phaethon 60
Phalaris 69
bull of 27
Phanagorium 272
Phanocles 62
Pharoah 4, 56
Pharnabazus 111

Pharnaces (son of Mithridates) 272
Pharsalia 295
Old Pharsalus 296
Phasis 257
Phileni (altars of) 46
Philip (false), see also Andriscus 203
Philip the Arab 353, 354, 368
Philip II of Macedon 28, 104, 123-130,
132, 137, 166

Philip V of Macedon 188, 195, 198, 199,
203

Philip II, Roman 353
Philip (satrap of Bactria) 147
Philip (son of Cassander) 152
Philippi 301
Philo (philosopher) 329
Philo (successor) 146, see also Python
Philomela 61
Philomelus 125
Philpoemen 199
Philotas (son of Parmenion) 137
Philotas (successor) 146
Phoceans 15, 124, 125, 126
Phoenicia 38, 120, 273
Phoenician Sea 47
Phoroneus 54
Phraates 225
Phraortes 68
Phrygia

Greater 146
Lesser 146
Phrygian cap 195
Phrygians 62
Phyle 103
Piraeus 102, 266
Placentia 195, 337

Plague 8, 13, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 55, 57,
58, 59, 60, 93,94, 95, 106, 117,
118, 122, 143, 144, 150, 158, 162,

163, 164, 165, 193, 213, 226, 247,
335, 339, 347, 354, 355, 364, 365,
366, 367, 368

G. Plautius 212
M. Plautius Hypsaeus 226
Picenum 182, 192

Picentes 161, 241, 243
Pictones 286
Piraeus 102, 266
Pisander 112
Pitana/Pitane 267, 343
Placentia 195, 337
Plataeans 87
Pliny, younger 343
Plynos 64
Po 182
Pollentia 396
Polybius 195,211
Polynices 62
Polyperchon 148, 150
Polymestor 208
Pometia 80
Pompeia 298
Pompeii 243

Q. Pompeius 214, 215, 222
Q. Pompeius Rufus 240
Gn. Pompeius Strabo 235, 241, 242, 244,
246, 247

Pompeius Trogus 15, 16, 20, 55, 58, 163,

164, 365

Gn. Pompey 298, 299

Sex. Pompey 298, 299,301, 303, 304,

305, 306

Pompey Bithynicus 296
Pompey the Great 29, 209, 242, 250, 252,
254, 255, 256, 270, 271, 273, 274,
283, 290, 291, 292, 293, 295, 296,
297, 298
Pontius 131, 144
Pontius Pilate 325, 329
Pontus 224, 265, 271, 298, 356, 359
Pope, Alexander 10
Popilia, Vestal Virgin 88
Popaedius 244

G. Popilius Laenas, see Gains Publius
M. Popilius Laenas 215
L. Porcius Cato, the elder 196

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INDEX

451

L. Porcius Cato, the younger 240, 242,
243, 293, 298
Porsenna 81
Porus 138

A. Postumius Albinus (consul 151 BC) 201
A. Postumius Albinus (consul 99 BC) 243
A. Postumius Albinus (propraetor 110
BC) 231

L. Postumius Albinus (consul 229 BC)
181, 187

L. Postumius Albinus (consul 173 BC)
199

Sp. Postumius Albinus (consul 321 BC)
131

Sp. Postumius Albinus (consul 110 BC)
231

Postumus 357
Praeneste 251, 252
Praenestines 117
Praesidae 138
Probus 359
Procas 74, 75
Procne 61
Proculus 359
Propontis 39

Propontic Gulf 42
Prusa 269
Prusias 199
Psylli 308

Ptolemy the Great 146, 148, 150, 151,

152, 153
Ptolemy VI 200
Ptolemy VIII 224, 225
Ptolemy XIII 209, 296
G. ‘Publius’ (= G. Popilius Laenas) 234
Punic War 28, 120, 153, 163, 173, 177,
179, 195, 202, 204
Pupienus 352
Pydna 150
Pylaemenes 224, 265
Pyrenees 183, 184, 190, 193, 311, 404,
405, 406

Pyrenean Alps 405
Pyrenean Passes 44
Pyrganio 270

Pyn-hus 28, 66, 120, 152, 153, 155-160,
168

Pythian oracle 293, 294

Pytho, serpent 294

Python 147, 148, see also Philo

Qasim ben A§bag 25
Quadi 347, 356
Quadratus 344
T. Qunictius Crispinus 191
Quinquegentians 361, 362
P. Quintilius Varus 314
Quintillus 358

‘Quintius’ (= L. Quinctius Cincinnatus)
93, 117, 118
Quintius 250

Racilium 311
Radagaisus 397, 398, 399
Raetia 43,313, 355,356
Rauraci 275

Ravenna 292, 356, 369, 402
Red Sea 4, 38, 39, 40, 51, 60, 307, 365,
368
Regini 96

religion 17, 60, 66, 69, 77, 108, 208, 209,
253, 326, 336, 344, 345, 373, 385,
397,412

pagan 61, 86, 189, 208, 333, 365
True 33
Remus 78
Rhea Silvia 74, 263
Rhegium 150, 254

Rhine 43, 43, 275, 279, 284, 313, 342,
343, 375, 380, 400, 404
Rhobascians 36

Rhodes 48, 54, 134, 136, 182, 339
Rhodope Mountains 257
Rhone 43, 44, 230, 235, 275, 291
Riphaean Mountains 36, 42, 321
Romania 412
Rome passim

Kingdom of 73, 74
Gallic sack 12, 27, 28, 106, 107, 108,
403

Gothic sack 12, 17, 21, 22, 24, 28, 30,
51,53,57,76, 77, 108, 141,356,
401-404

sack by Hannibal avoided 189-190

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452 SEVEN BOOKS OE HISTORY AGAINST THE PAGANS

Romans passim
Romulus 74, 75, 78, 238, 263
Roxa 150
Rufinus 396
Rutilius Namatianus 17
Rusiccada 47

R Rutilius (consul 132 BC) 223
P. Rutilius Lupus 241, 242
P. Rutilius Nudus 267
P. Rutilius Rufus 240
‘Rutupus’ (= Rutupiae) 45

Sabines 78, 81, 93, 129, 145
country 340
women 78

Sabinus (Caesar’s lieutenant) 283
Sabinus (usurper in Africa) 410
Sabinus (Vespasian’s brother) 337
Sacaraucae 41
Safris 41

Saguntum 183, 298
Salamis (Cypriot) 344
Sallust 15, 274, 293
Sallustius Crispus 341
Salonae 257, 293
Salonica 10, 386
Saltpans (lake of) 46, 47
Samara 37

promontory of 41
Samaritans 349

Samnites 28, 120, 123, 131, 132, 142,
143, 144, 145, 241, 242, 243,
250
Samos 339
Sapor I 355
Sapor II 372, 377
Saracens 38
Saragossa 1

Sardanapulus 27, 62, 67, 74
Sardinia 44, 47, 48, 49, 140, 164, 170,
177, 179, 185, 188, 293, 321
Sardinian Sea 49
Sardinians 179, 188
Sardis 133, 267
Sarmatia 372

Sarmatians 347, 356, 362, 380
Sarmatian Dacians 313

Samus 185
Sarus 398
Satricum 132
Satuminus (usurper) 359
G. Saufeius 239
Saul (barbarian general) 397
Saxons 361, 379
Scena 45
Scolopetius 64
Scordisci 257
Scottish peoples 45
L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonian 331
G. Scribonius Curio (consul 76 BC) 257,
269

G. Scribonius Curio (praetor 49 BC) 292,
293

Scriptures 33, 38, 50
Scylaceum 304
Scynus 146

Scythia 64, 83, 85, 86, 87, 128, 136, 214
Scythian Sea 42

Scythians 27, 41, 51, 60, 63, 64, 67,
85, 86, 128, 136,313
Scythian youth 64
Sebastian 408
Seboim 52
Sedicini 120, 189
Seduni 277
Segisama 311
Segeric 412
Segor 52
Sejanus 326
Seleucia 342
in Assyria 346
in Isauria 344

Seleucus (successor) 147, 150, 151, 152,
153

Seleucus (pirate) 269
Semiramis 27, 51, 74, 75, 76, 84
Sempronia 226, 228
G. Sempronius Blaesus 174
G. Sempronius Gracchus 29, 227, 228
Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (consul 238
BC) 178

Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (consul 215
BC) 187, 188

Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (consul 177

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INDEX

453

BC) 199

Ti. Sempronius Gracchus (tribune 133
BC) 222, 223, 227
P. Sempronius Longus 183, 184
Ti. Sempronius Longus 197
P. Sempronius Sophus 161
G. Sempronius Tuditanus 225

P. Sempronius Tuditanus 193
Sens 375

G. Sentius 244

Septimius Severus 9, 349, 350, 363, 366
Sequani 275, 302
Serenus Granius 344
Seres 147

Sertorius 246, 249, 251, 253, 255, 256,
259, 260, 267, 279

Q. Servilius Ahala 117
Gn. Servilius Caepio 223

Q. Servilius Caepio (consul 253 BC) 174
Q. Servilius Caepio (proconsul 105 BC)
234, 235

Q. Servilius Caepio (praetor 90 BC) 242
P. Servilius Vatia Isauricus (consul 79 BC)
252, 305

P. Servilius Priscus 93

Servius Tullius 79

Severus II (Galerius’s Caesar) 369

Severus of Minorca 6

Sextilia (Vestal Virgin) 159

Sibi 139

Sibylline Books 144, 162
Sibyrtes 147

Sicily 28, 47, 48, 96, 97, 98, 100, 105,

140, 159, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168,
169, 171, 173, 175, 177, 184, 189,
191, 199, 218, 223, 252, 259, 270,
293, 301, 303, 304, 305, 309, 321,
328,413

Sicilian expedition 28, 96-98
Sicilian sea 46
Sicilians 69, 166, 168
Sicels 175
Sicyon 148
Sidon 120, 363
Silacea 290
Silarus 258
Silvanus 375

Sinope (Amazon) 65
Sinope (town) 269
Sinuessa 223
Siris 156

Sirmium 358, 359, 385
Smyma/Zmyma 240, 267, 302
Socrates 104

Sodom 27, 52, 53, 54, 402
Solon 94, 238
Sophocles 72
Sothimus 243
Sotiates 279

Spain 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 17, 28, 29, 37, 44, 45,
183, 184, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192,
193, 196, 197, 201, 202, 207, 212,
219, 246, 254, 255, 256, 259, 260,
267, 291, 298, 311, 314, 321, 335,
336, 356, 363, 374, 408, 411, 413,
see also Lacedemonia
Hither 199, 217, 219, 279,313
Further 198, 217, 293
Spains 197, 255, 292, 298,311
Spanish Provinces 336, 400, 405, 406,
409,413

Spaniards 140, 141, 173, 180, 191,
192,217,218, 221,311,313
Sparta 27, 28, 70, 71, 112, 113, 129
kingdom of 159

Spartans 15, 62, 70, 71, 72, 88, 89,
100, 101, 102, 103, 111, 112,

113, 115, 127, 136, see also
Lacedaemonians
Spartacus 29, 253, 258, 259
Statanor 147

Titus Statilius Taurus 304, 305
St Stephen 5, 6
Sthenelas 61
Stilicho 396, 400, 404
Stoechadae Islands 44
Stratonice 224
Subventana 46
Subventani 48
Suessa 80

Suessani 189

Suetonius 15, 275, 314, 323, 331, 332,
339

Suessones 276

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Sueves 4, 42, 141, 276, 313, 347, 400,
404, 407,413

Sugambri/Sygambri 280,313
Sulcamum 200

Sulla 29, 233, 242, 243, 245, 249, 250,
251, 252, 254, 255, 259, 266, 267,
269, 291

Faustus Sulla 298
Sulmo 292

G. Sulpicius (dictator) 118
Ser. Sulpicius Galba (historian) 255
Ser. Sulpicius Galba (consul 144 BC)
201 , 202

Ser. Sulpicius Galba (liberator) 277

P. Sulpicius Rufus 244, 245

Surenas 290

Sutrini 117

Susa 146

Syphax 193

Syracuse 48, 98, 158, 166, 169, 189, 270
Syracusans 96, 97, 98, 169
Syria 36, 38, 39, 134, 136, 146, 196, 271,
273, 291, 298, 302, 304, 306, 307,
308, 323, 332, 335, 336, 338, 346,
349, 350, 356, 357, 358, 363
Syrian Sea 47
Syriacus 2
Syrtes 174
Greater 46
Lesser 46, 47, 48

Tacitus (emperor) 359, 367
Tacitus (historian) 14, 15, 52, 324, 341,
353, 365, 367

named as Cornelius 58, 59, 339
Tagus 202, 212
Tanais 36, 42
Tantalus 62
Taprobane 37, 38
Tarentum 156, 157, 191

Tarentines 28, 155, 156, 159, 161
Tarpeian Rock 245
Tarquin Kings 75, 81
Tarquinius Priscus 79
Tarquinius Superbus 79, 81, 83
Tarragona 2, 3, 49, 313, 356
Tarsus 133, 135, 359

Tauromenium 48, 223, 304
Taurus, Mount 38, 39, 40, 41, 133, 136,
257

Taxiles 147

‘Thelcises’ (= Telchines) 27, 54

Telesinus 251, 252

Tencteri 313

Tenedus 48

Terence 195

M. Terentius VaiTO (scholar) 18, 292, 293
M. Terentius Varro Lucullus 250, 258,

269

P. Terentius Varro 186, 216, 217

Tereus 61

Tetricus 357, 358

Teutobodus 236

Teutones 235, 236, 238

Tezaga 203

Thames 280

Thamyris 85

Thapsus 298

Theanum 243

Thebes 103, 129

Thebans 62, 71, 112, 113, 114, 115,
123, 124, 125, 132
Thebaid 344
Thebeste 395
Themiscyria 39

Themiscyrian Plains 64
Themistocles 90
Theodora 361
Theodosia (city) 37
Theodosius the Great 2, 9, 10, 30, 382,
385-394, 396, 404,411
Theodosius U 393
Theodosius (Count) 382
Thera 332
Theramenes 102
Therasia 332

Thermopylae 15, 88, 125, 126, 197, 210
Theseus 65

Thessalonice (mother of Antipater) 152
Thessaly 57, 124, 126, 132, 156, 295, 296
Thessalians 63, 124, 125, 126
Thrace 42, 126, 132, 146, 208, 244, 339,
383, 385

Thracian provinces 387

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INDEX

455

Thracian tribes 67
Thracians 195, 200, 313
Thrasybulus 28, 103
Thule 45
Thyatira 267
Thyestes 62
Thyresus 221, 222
Tiber 178, 223, 249, 251, 305, 337
Tiberius (emperor) 314, 325, 326, 327,
380

Ticinum 184

Tigranes II 270, 271

Tigranocerta 270

Tigris 38, 40, 270, 342, 360

Tigurini 234, 235, 236, 291

Tissaphernes 99, 100, 111

M. Titius (Antonian general) 306

Q. Titius Flaminius 227

Q. Titurius Sabinus 279

Titus 324, 338, 339, 340, 352

Titus Gesonius 82

Titus Tatius 78

Tleptolemus 147

Tobit 32

Tolenus 242

Tolosa 234

Torres Rodriguez, C. 22
Trallia 267

Trajan 2, 9, 342, 344, 366, 385
Trasumennus (= Trasimene), Lake 185,
186, 192
Treballi 128

G. Trebonius (liberator) 292, 302

Treveri 281, 282, 283, 284

Trevia 184

Trevor-Roper, H. 7

Triboci 276

Trinovantes 281

Tripolitana 46

Tripolitanian 349
Troglodytes 46
Trous 62

Troy 18, 66, 67, 77
Trojan War 27, 65
Trojans 62, 65
Tulingi 275

M. Tullius Cicero 265, 273, 274, 302, 330

Q. Tullius Cicero 281
Turmogi 311
Tuscia (= Clusinum) 106
Tyre 134, 136, 166, 363
Tyn'eus (= Tyrtaeus) 71
Tyrrhenian Sea 37, 43, 44, 48, 49

Ubii 280
Ulbienses 49
Uldin 398
Ulpian 352
Umbria 142
Umbrians 142
Usipetes 313

Utica 193, 202, 227, 246, 249, 252, 298
Uxama 256
Uxellodunum 287
Uzarae Mountains 47

Vaccaei44, 217, 219, 311
Vagenses 290

Valentinian I 30, 378, 379, 380, 385
Valentinian II 381, 382, 387, 388, 389,
390

Valerian 355
Valerias Antias 210, 235
Valens 9, 30, 378, 379, 381, 382, 383,
384, 385, 386
Valentinus 345

‘Marcus Valerius’ (= Manlius Valerius) 81
M. Valerius Corvinus 119
G. Valerius Falco 178, 179
C. Valerius Flaccus 122
L. Valerius Flaccus 196

L. Valerius Flaccus (suffect consul 86

BC) 267

M. Valerius Laevinus 190

P. Valerius Laevinus 156
Valerius Maximus (historian) 196

Q. Valerius Orca 293

P. Valerius Poplicola 93
Vallia 6,412,413

Vandals 347, 397, 400, 404, 407, 413

Vangiones 276

Vargunteius 290

Veii 28, 78, 79,81,82, 106

Velabri 45

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Velocasses 276, 286

Vinnius, Mount 311

P. Ventidius Bassus

Virdomarus 182

Venuleius 251

Virgil 154

Venusium 186

Virginia 95

Veragri 277

Virginius 95

Vercingetorix 284, 285

Viriatus 212, 214, 256

Verinian 405

Visigoths 6

Veromandi 276

Vitellii 80

G. Verres 270

Vitellius 336, 337, 338, 340

Vesozes 63, 64

Vologaesus 346

Vespasian 324, 336-340, 352, 353

Volsci 93

Vesta (temple of) 178, 349

Volusenus 277

Vestal Virgins 122, 159, 163, 233, 236,

Volusian 354, 367

269

Vulcan (island) 199

Vestilian Hall 349

Vulsinii 161

Vesuvius, Mount 258, 340

Vulsci 116

Vestini 241, 242, 244

G. Vetilius 212

Whirlwind 158, 367, 391, 392

Vetranio 374

L. Vettius 274

Xanthippus 173

L. Veturius 233

Xerxes 88, 90,91,92,410

T. Veturius Calvinus 131

Xerxes (= Ardachir I) 352

G. Vibius Pansa 301

Victor (son of Maximus) 389

York 350

Victorinus 357

Vidacilius 243

Zenobia 358

Vienne 389, 408

Zeugis 47

Vindalium 229

Zopyrion 136

Vindelici 313

Zoroaster 51

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